Noise
by romeoandcinderella
Summary: And in a span of five years, only the four of them remained: the near-sighted boy who can't feel pain, the boy who cried as he turned into wolf, the odd-eyed boy with the odd laugh, and the silent girl with the noisy head.
1. Prologue

**Prologue**:

Quiet clicking sounds of metal filled the room. Its walls were immaculately white, looking as if it had just been freshly painted. Even the white tiles of the floor seemed to shine.

The room's occupants were all gathered in a circular formation. They were dressed in robes as white as the room itself. They were covered from head to toe with not a single hair peeking from their disposable head caps. In their gloved hands were a variety of cutting instruments and different syringes holding various types of chemicals.

In the middle of the circle was none other than a young girl who looked to be no older than eleven. She was sitting in a metallic chair with her head firmly held in place by a metal ring connected to the chair, and her hands bound to its arms in order to prevent her from moving about in her unconscious state. Her bald head was cut open, showing her brain for the white-clad people to see.

Unlike the rest of the room, the girl's exposed head was red with blood. It was a morbid scene, really. Her brain seemed to beat in a steady pulse not unlike her heartbeat. It was disgusting- she was disgusting. The people who prodded her brain were all disgusting.

One of the workers went outside their circle and started to prepare instruments that would be used to seal her skullcap back into place, along with surgical threads and needles. He stopped for a moment to look at the child. His eyes softened, and he let himself frown behind his surgical mask as he looked at her in pity.

He shook his head.

It didn't matter how disgusting the act was now, after all, the only remembrance she'll ever have from the surgery would be a nice halo of stitch on her bare head.

The people around her stayed silent as they worked with precision that can only be acquired from doing the same job a hundred of times. Other than the clicking of the metal instruments, the muffled noise coming from her oxygen mask, and the constant beeping of the heart monitor attached to her, everything was silent.

Now only if her head would stop being so damn loud.

* * *

><p>Harder, and harder the boy bit his lips. He wanted to shout, to scream out due to the pain, but he refused. He wanted to show them- no, he <em>had<em> to show them all how much pain he can endure, so that hopefully they will stop soon. And so, despite the pain he felt, his face refused to give away a hint of emotion.

His black hair clung to his face as it became matted with sweat. His blue eyes unreadable behind the old glasses he wore. _Just a little bit more_.

"Turn it higher," a muffled voice from a brown haired man behind a glass wall said.

The person's companion just merely nodded and turned his attention to the complex-looking control panel in front of him before turning a huge black knob clockwise, sending a hundred Del of pain to the boy through the black straps connected to his tiny arms, legs, and torso. He watched as the little boy behind the glass squirmed in his chair, under undeniable pain.

_They would have to stop soon_, he tries to comfort himself as his breathing became more labored._ I hope they stop soon._

He banged his bandaged head backwards on the chair as he felt the amount of pain going higher and higher. He managed to bite his lip hard enough to draw out blood. His felt his glasses slip away from his face due to all the sweat, making his vision blurry as he stared stoically at the two white-clad men from the other side of the glass.

He did good, or at least he thought he did. His (lack of)reaction, however did not seem to please the brown haired man.

"Oh, give me that," the man pushed his companion aside and turned the black knob until the knob refused to turn, signaling that the knob had already reached it's highest peak.

The boy had to scream at this. It was painful, way too painful even for his supposedly modified high pain tolerance.

"Giuseppe! Stop that!" The brown-haired man's companion shouted. "Our job to to test the kid's pain tolerance, not to kill him."

"Shut it, Donato," Giuseppe retorted. "If he dies, then that simply means that he's a failed one."

"We're not supposed to kill important specimens, it would take us years to replicate the abilities of this boy."

"Tsk," Giuseppe knew that he was defeated. "Fine."

Donato opened the door labeled 'Pain Simulator' as Giuseppe turned off the device.

"You did good, kid," Donato lightly patted the asian boy's hair. "Just a little bit more."

_Just a little bit more._ The boy glared at the sound of those words. Those words had been his mantra for so long already. Perhaps it was the time to give up on those words.

He shook his head at the thought, ridding himself of the doubt inside him. He had to live. He had to endure.

Just a little bit more.

* * *

><p>Dark and damp. Those words would be the first to describe the room. The room was also filthy, with its wall paint chipping at different places mixed with dried reddish-brown liquid that looked suspiciously like blood.<p>

Animalistic growls filled the small, and cramped room. The said sound's source was none other than a young blonde boy lying and strapped on a metal table, constricting his movements.

On his arms were various tubes imbedded on his skin with sterile needles. Each tube seemed to contain different chemicals, most of the liquids looked like acids that could easily eat away his veins.

He felt his muscles contract, and his bones move and rearrange in a slow, agonizing pace. He bit his lips and tasted blood as his sharpened canines pierced through his chemical filled skin.

It hurt like hell. He wanted to kick, he wanted to flail, he wanted to thrash around. He wanted to be free, but he's not stupid, he knows that freedom was still a faraway dream for him. He wanted to do so much, but he can't. And so, he was reduced to making animalistic noises whenever he felt the need to thrash due to the pain.

He hated his growls. He hated himself. He hated the people who made him this way.

He wanted to stop.

_I want to go home_.

The thought made him stop squirming for a while. He felt heat fill his eyes. He saw his vision blurring.

Tears pooled on his eyes before falling _freely_. His tears weren't one of pain, but of loneliness and confusion. He wanted to go home...

But...

Where exactly is home?

* * *

><p>Five years, two months, three weeks, six days, sixteen hours, thirty four minutes, and a few seconds. He's been counting- not that accurately, of course. But he's counting.<p>

He could feel his right eye getting gently tugged out of his eye socket, but still connected to him by a thin lines of nerves? ...skin? He did not know. It did not scare him anymore, he's already used to this. In the span of five years, he's already done this five times. Besides... His body was already drugged with anesthesia that was supposed to knock him out, although he thinks that it's doing a pretty shitty job at keeping him unconscious considering the fact that he is still aware of his surroundings.

But no matter, at least he can't feel the pain of the surgery they were performing on him, the pain on his heart, however, was a different matter all together.

The doctors' hands were gentle, they had to be in order to not destroy five years worth of research by accidentally pulling his pretty little red eye out.

For a little while, he was reminded of the gentle touch of his mother. The way she would run her fingers through his blue hair, the way she would hug him whenever he would go home crying due to some childish feuds, and the way that she would kiss him goodnight as she wishes him sweet dreams.

He was brought back to reality when he felt his eye getting tugged a little harder than what was needed. Through the mess consisting of the reprimanding shouts of the other surgeons, he remembered.

He doesn't have a mother anymore. The only thing running through his hair was a piece of metal locking his little ten year old head, the only thing hugging him was a bundle of chains wrapped around him in case he 'woke' up from the anesthesia-induced sleep, and the only thing kissing him were the gloved hands of those pathetic excuse of a human that they call scientists.

He did not even dream anymore... Why should he when his days were already a living nightmare?

The noise of the surgeons soon died out, until only the beeping of the heart monitor connected to him remained.

In silence, he continued counting. Five years, two months, three weeks, six days, sixteen hours, fifty minutes, and three seconds... four seconds... five...

And in a month, his eye would finally heal from his last surgery. Add another month to that and he would be sure to master the new ability that his eye would give him.

Two months, all in all.

...And in two months, he would escape.

Finally.

* * *

><p><strong>Welp. I've finally posted this. Hoorah!<strong>

**Anyways, this prologue is set five years before canon!KHR buttttt the first chapter of this story would start ten years before canon. Oh, and this would probably be darker than the original KHR since it would start at a pre-canon Estraneo arc.**

**Yes, this is a MukuroxOC, but it would focus more on well... the family and friendship between them(I mean Mukuro, Ken and Chikusa). I would also include lots and lots of Ken and Chikusa because I absolutely love them and I think that they're horribly underrated. It would more or less stay as MukuroxOC unless, y'know... the readers decide that they would want a different pairing(as long as it's a possible one)**

**Oh, and don't worry. My next chapters wouldn't be this short (hopefully...?)**

**- romeoandcinderella**


	2. In The Beginning

**Chapter 1:**

The Estraneo Famiglia, a proud Japanese-Italian mafia family created by an Italian man named Dante Estraneo and his Japanese wife Michiko Takeda, had only been established less than half a century ago. Compared to other well-known families such as the Vongola and the Cavallone, the Estraneo would still be considered as a 'young and fresh' family, but that never stopped them from catching up in terms of wealth and influence.

Their power, you see, was not like the Vongola's raw strength in combat and quantity of fine combatants, nor was it like the Cavallone's strength in networking and wealth. The Estraneo does not fight. They have little to no fighters in the family(in mafia standards, of course. They would _never_ leave themselves stupidly defenseless). Instead, they had thousands of researchers, scientists, inventors, engineers, and doctors of all sorts.

Whatever they lacked in brute strength, they made it up with pure intelligence. By exhausting the resources of the technology that they had in their time, they managed to theorize, research and build weapons with technology decades ahead of them. They did not keep all weapons to themselves though. Being the smart bastards that they were, they chose to build and manufacture vast numbers of said weapons to be sold in the black market.

In the dangerous world of the underground, it is considered most foolish to not bring along some sort of weapon no matter how absurd the said weapon is. What matters the most is the weapon's ability to protect it's holder. Of course, the most popular one would be the gun, and though it is highly portable, it was easily recognizable and took precious seconds to load . So when the Estraneo released various weapons that were concealable, portable, easy to use, and definitely deadly, hundreds of mafia families teared and clawed their way just to get hands on their inventions.

_The Estraneo does not fight_. They simply create, sell, and let fools that they call mafia fight for them. They feed on the chaos stirred by their creations, and live off of the fortune it came with. They refused to affiliate and tie themselves down to one family. It was a risky move in their part but it was better than having other families leeching off of their inventions and possibly leaking blueprints.

They aimed to create more and more weapons, all better than their last ones.

And with that mindset came the beginning of their end.

* * *

><p>The second head of the Estraneo Famiglia, Angelo Estraneo, was a very paranoid man. He inherited his position a decade ago when his father died during the creation of what was to be the Estraneo's greatest creation, a radioactive weapon infused with highly potent energy that takes the form of flames much like the Vongola boss' signature ability.<p>

The Possesion Bullet is what his father called it. After his father's death, the said bullet soon turned into a dead project that no one ever dared touch again... Until now.

It started with letters of threats, followed by the disappearance of a few of his trusted famiglia members, and most recently, the murder of his beloved wife. He was undeniably scared, but he was even more enraged. He wouldn't stand and let his family get oppressed due to some stupid violent mafia family wanting to merge with the Estraneo.

Using the genius intellect that he had been born with, he took off and continued his father's search for the ultimate weapon. With it, he shall show the mafia world that his family is not one to be messed with. He was not a bad man. He did not desire anything but to protect his family, even if he had to use intimidation just do protect them.

And so, in a few short years, he had finally created the world's greatest weapon. A weapon that has the ability to give its user the power of possessing the body of another person.

It was just too bad that he did not foresee how bad the backfire would be.

The existence of the bullet created terror in the underground. Many desired it, but most had been scared. And for what seemed like the first time in history since the Omerta, all mafia famiglias got together and signed a treaty of some sort in order to ban and destroy the existence of the said bullet.

Along with the destruction of the bullet, came the fall of the Estraneo. With no ally on their side, they soon became the biggest target of all the mafia families out there. They were heavily persecuted, treated as nothing more than trash, and became live target practice.

They soon became desperate.

_Desperate times call for desperate measures._

That's what he had told his subordinates as he called for an order to send all of the children of the Estraneo(both Italian and Japanese branch) to their branch in Sicily, Italy for a Human Weapon project to reclaim the fallen dignity of their family.

Of course, the words Human Weapon didn't sit well with a lot of people from his family, but he did not take 'no' for an answer. "Obey, or die." His words soon became law in their family, but this in not what he wanted.

He was not a bad man. He was a caring boss, a reliable friend and a loving husband.

He was simply a good man caught in a bad situation.

* * *

><p>Approximately two weeks after Angelo's order had been announced, around five hundred children were sent over to Sicily, Italy.<p>

It was a mess, of course, and it almost alerted Italy's government with the sudden number of children getting sent to the said island, though they still managed to pull it off under the mafia's radar.

Everything was quickly sorted out by starting to segregate the children by gender, with all the female sent to a secluded forests near Mount Etna, and the male to Nebrodi in order to hide the children away from the public.

They let the children settle in white tiled rooms with ten occupants each. It was crowded, but the it didn't matter because their number were predicted to be reduced into half by nightfall anyways.

The children were soon stripped off of their clothing, stripped off of their identities, stripped off of their names. Every child was reduced into nothing more than manufacturing products labeled with white gowns and anklets containing printed barcodes for easier monitoring. They were named by numbers indicating the chronological order of their arrival in Sicily.

With a quick glance over their profiles that were sent by their parents, the children with high affinity in combat, strength, and intelligence were quickly separated from the rest, while the remaining children were quickly distributed to different projects.

The different projects consisted of but were not limited to Gene splicing, Body modifications, Flame enhancement, Brain development, Pharmaceutical testings and even Artificial insemination for the females who were old enough.

They started various resistance tests in the afternoon, and by nightfall, only a little over two hundred of the children remained. Most of the remaining children were either naturally strong or simply too stubborn to die.

Among all of them, only four stood out: #14, #49, #63, and #69*.

* * *

><p>#14 was the number assigned for the blonde 4 year-old Japanese-Italian boy named Ken Joshima. The moment that the Estraneo Head's order came into his home, his parents were all too eager to send him away. He was sent to Sicily quickly after they received the order.<p>

His parents never told him why he had to go away, all he knows is that they were happy to have gotten rid of him. He thought that traveling to Sicily would be a huge improvement in his life, or at least bring his life to a better state than when he was still with his parents.

Oh, how wrong he was.

Upon arriving in Sicily, he was quickly transferred to Nebrodi. It was a very secluded place with trees acting as a natural shield from the public eyes. There, he was immediately stripped naked and got forced to shower before changing into a thin white shirt and shorts. They wrote the number _14_ on the back of his hand, and attached a blue anklet with a barcode on him.

Men in white coats instructed him to discard his name before placing him in a white-tiled room along with nine other kids. Some of them were Italian, some were Japanese, while some were a mix of both just like him, and even though they were very different, they had one thing in common, they no longer have names of their own- well, except for a boy named Tony, whom stubbornly refused to be reduced to a pig ready to be butchered.

Ken had never been the sharpest tool in the shed, nor was he the brightest crayon in the box, but he always knew that in order to survive, he had to follow those who hold his life. He knew better than to pull off a stunt like Tony's. It's kind of like his situation with his parents... the only difference now is that instead of obeying his parents for a lighter beating that day, he now obeyed the white-clad men in order to keep himself alive long enough to know what they were planning to do to them.

It didn't take him long to figure it out, though. That night, many of those white-clad men came up to their white-tiled cell. One of them took his wrists and cuffed them together before dragging him away.

Gene Splicing is what he heard them call it, and though he had no idea what those words meant, he understood one thing: it hurts.

Doctors or whatever they were called gathered around him and chained him on some metal table. They started to inject various syringes on him, making his skin crawl. He could literally feel the chemicals move through his arms.

"The chemicals seem to be reacting positively..." a gray-haired man said to the others after about an hour. "You can take him back to his cell now."

And though Ken did not remember how, he suddenly found himself back inside their cell. He didn't know if it was the haze or the pain that the chemicals gave him, but he was pretty sure that there used to be more than six children here.

"Oi, where are the others?" Tony asked the man whom brought Ken back.

The man remained silent as he moved to exit the room. Tony, the brave soul, launched himself at the man, but before Tony could reach him, the boy suddenly found himself on the floor after getting hit by something hard on the head.

"Listen here, kid." The man crouched down to the boy's level, pressing a bloodied gun at Tony's temple. "If you value your life, then you better know your place."

The man got up, brushed his lab gown, and finally left the room.

"You okay?" Ken approached the boy on the floor.

"Ha! 'Course I am, ain't no gown wearing bastard can take on the mighty Tony."

Though what Tony did seemed stupid, Ken found himself admiring the boy for his bravery. He never stood up for himself when his parents would beat him so he often wondered what would it be like to do that.

_Once I get out of this hellhole, I'm going to be braver than anyone else._

* * *

><p>#49 was the number assigned to the near-sighted, black haired Japanese boy on the corner of the room. On his first night in Sicily, he found himself in a small room, strapped to a chair and bound by various cables leading to a machine behind a glass wall.<p>

He was an only son, so he was used to being doted on. His parents loved him very much, and did everything that they can in order to keep him away from any pain that life may bring. So when he first felt his muscles painfully contracting due to the cables around his limbs, he screamed, but then again, anyone would be screaming at the amount of pain that they sent him.

It went on for hours before those scientists behind the glass finally got tired. One of them approached him, kneeled down to his level, and fixed his glasses before saying, "you passed. You'll be up for a surgery soon."

Though his four year old brain didn't understand much, he knew that failing and dying on this test would be so much better. The same man who approached him took him back to their cell. The asian boy was surprised on how gentle he had been, considering what they just did to him. He wanted to ask the man's name, but decided against it.

When he came back to their room, he found out that there were only seven of them left, including himself. Everyone looked tired and in pain, especially that boy named Tony who was on the floor holding his bleeding head beside a blonde haired boy.

"Oh, someone's back," the blonde haired boy informed his friend before turning to the him. "Oi, stop crying. You're not the only one who got hurt, you know?"

_Crying...?_ #49 seemed confused at first, until he let his hands touch his face. They felt wet, and his vision was blurry. He really was crying. He rubbed his eyes furiously, willing the tears to go away, but it only seemed to make them fall more. He fell to his knees, soundlessly crying.

"H-hey! S-stop that!" The blonde kid panicked as he approached him.

The asian boy felt a weigh on his shoulder and looked up to see the unsure face of the other. "It's going to be okay."

"What's your name?" Tony asked him.

"#49..." he responded in a timid voice.

"Not that! You're real name," the boy said. He pointed to the blonde haired boy. "This is Ken, and my name is Tony."

_Chikusa_... he wanted to say, but he stopped himself. He was too scared to go against those scary white-clad men.

"It's okay, you don't have to tell us." Tony reassure him.

"Maybe someday..." _If that day ever comes._

* * *

><p>Green eyes opened, only to be met by the sight of a white ceiling. She blinked... and blinked... and blinked. She had no idea where she was, how she got here, and why she was here. In fact, she can't seem to remember anything. She slowly got up from her lying position on the floor, wincing as she felt her head pulse.<p>

She stared at her hands for a while, unsure of what to do. She tugged on the white gown that she was wearing, suddenly feeling a little bit suffocated. She noticed something near her bare foot, it was a red anklet with barcodes printed in them.

She studied her surroundings and found out the she was not alone. Inside the room were four other girls, all wearing the same gown and anklets fast asleep. She brought her knees up to her chest, and buried her face in between her arms.

_Where am I...?_

The door creaked open, revealing a white-clad woman with long, brown, wavy hair. The woman seemed to be pleased at the sight of her.

"Good morning," she stated as she drew nearer the little girl.

When she got close enough, the girl quickly darted her eyes towards the pin on her lab gown._ Ada Rumore_, it read.

The girl noticed the way that the lady's green eyes seemed to flash in something like recognition. Did she know her?

"Do you know who I am...?"

'_She looks just like her_...' The woman thought as she took in the girl's wavy brown hair and green eyes.

"You are #63," the woman replied.

"But that's not a name..."

"And how do you know that...?" the lady, Ada, asked with a small smile.

How did she know...? This made the little girl confused.

"You don't remember anything, do you?" Ada asked her. This made the little girl frown. "It's okay, your roommates can't remember anything too."

"But why?"

Ada thought for a little while, trying to find a suitable answer. She couldn't tell the girl of the horror that she'll be facing. Ada was to cowardly for that.

"For the greater good." The little girl was about to ask something else, but Ada quickly shushed her. "Question time is over now. I'm only here to check your vitals, okay?"

This went on until the rest of the girls woke up to have their vitals checked too. Just like Ada had told her, none of them remember their names.

There was an 11- year old brunette, a 12- year old blonde girl, 8- year old blonde twins. She was the youngest one in the room, being only 6- years old.

Her head suddenly hurt all of a sudden. She fell on her knees, feeling as if her head was being pounded. She brought up a hand on her forehead, only to be surprised as she touched a rough part on it, hidden by her bangs. It seemed to be a circle-shaped wound that felt like scorch marks. She looked up and saw the four girl huddling around her in worry, and then she noticed, they all had the same mark too.

And then she saw black.

* * *

><p>A blue haired boy in the corner of the room silently surveyed the little cell he was in. Last night, there had been ten of them, but only seven of them remained when morning came.<p>

He silently studied the faces of his companions who seemed to not notice him. He could pick a few who stood out. The first one would be a boy named Tony whom stupidly went against the white-clad men last night, next would be the gruff looking blonde haired boy with golden eyes that seemed to find it comforting to tail around Tony in their tiny cell, the last one was the tall black-haired kid that wore glasses who cried last night.

He could still feel his right eye burning from the various chemicals they poured in it last night. He can't see from it anymore. He wouldn't be surprised if he got told that it had already been burned off due to the chemicals they poured.

The door to their cell opened and in came another one of those bastards in white.

"#69," the man simply said.

'Ah, that's me.' The blue haired boy thought, obviously displeased.

Just like last night, he found himself surrounded by scientists, and strapped to a metal table, staring at the bright light placed right in front of his face. They decided to add something new, though. His head was soon connected to many cables leading to various monitors somewhere in the room.

"Hold still..." One of the men told him.

He could feel a gloved hand try to pry open his swelling right eye. Before he could comprehend what was happening, he found his eye getting stabbed by a sharp needled syringe.

And then he found himself in a bright, white place.

* * *

><p><strong>First chapter is up! Ta-dah~!<strong>

***Yes, their numbers were based on their Fandom shorthands, except of course, for my OC(hers came from a random number generator)**

**I'll probably be using their numbers to refer to the for a while...? I know that Ken isn't acting like Ken but I kind of wanted to have my own story on how his loud personality came to be...?**

**I also added a little bit of a backstory for the Estraneo. Aaaaaaaaah! Some of the experiments were based on the Nazi Human Experiment. I feel so bad.**

**Passerby/ForeverinWonderland: Thank you for the review. It was gorgeous *sobs* Thank you for pointing out my mistake too! And yeah... i'll be adding her into the storyline too. I hope to not disappoint you!**

**rechizen: Are you who I think you are? WATERYUDOINGHERE? Emerghed, this is soooo embarrassing. ASDFGHJKL. I'll be reading your story tooooo.**

**xXBloodyIllusionXx: Thank you for the wonderful review! I'm happy that you saw promise in those 1000+ words! Oh, and the MukuroOC part won't probably come until much later...? uvu. I hope to meet your expectations!**

**Oh, and thanks to Lumina13, Photojourney, whennothingmatters, and xXBloodyIllusionXx for the follows! **


	3. White is for Hope

**Chapter 2:**

_The blue haired boy found himself in a bright, white space. Just space. There was nothing else, but white nothingness. Everything was empty. Emptier than what he was feeling then and there. There was no ceiling, no sky. There was no end to the horizon. He didn't even have a shadow, oddly enough._

White_. It was the color of the wall of his cell, the ceiling in the cramped room, the gowns of those scientist. White was the color of all the things he hated. _

How ironic.

_Wasn't white supposed to be the color of hope? Look at where he is now. In some white place... alone. Was he dead? Truth to be told, he wasn't sure if he would be relieved if he was dead. Would dying make him feel better...?_

_He decided to survey his surroundings, and was surprise to find out that he was not actually alone._

_Behind him was a girl lying down on the white floor. Her hair was wavy, and brown. Her full bangs were parted due to her lying position, and on the right side of her forehead was an ugly looking burn of some sort, with the bits of skin looking like it had been singed off. She was young, perhaps she was only a year older than him. She was wearing a white dress that resembled gowns at hospitals, and on her right ankle was a band with a barcode that looked much similar to his._

_For the second time that day, green eyes found themselves waking up to something white, except she wasn't looking up to a ceiling anymore. She was no longer in her room either. Instead, she was lying in a vast white space, with no corners or any end. She slowly lifted herself up into a comfortable sitting position, and was surprised to find someone else with her._

_In front of her was a young blue haired boy, with matching short blue hair with its rear portion spiked up, making it look a little bit like a... pineapple?_

_Blue eyes met green, and they found themselves just stupidly staring at each other, wondering how in the world they got here in the first place._

_It was the blue eyed boy who decided to speak first._

_"_Who are you?"_ He wanted to harshly demand, but he was surprised to find himself unable to speak. He tried it again, and moved to open his mouth but still no sound came out. It unnerved him, but he did not let it show._

_The girl just stared, looking at him, wondering how they got to whatever this place is. She remained quiet, opting to simply observe the boy as he tried to move is mouth as if to speak._

_She blinked, and moved her right hand to cup her ear as if to say, _"I can't hear you."

* * *

><p>Rapid beeps of a machine rang through the air, piercing the silence. The sound would go at different paces, with some going so fast that the beeps started to mash together.<p>

"His mind successfully connected somewhere," a man in his late thirties said as he stared at the young blue haired boy lying on the metal table.

"The signal seems unusually strong, but it doesn't seem to be connected to someone near." Another man supplied.

A man with cleanly cut blonde hair, wearing a pin that said _Donato Celeste- Head Researcher,_ furrowed his brows. "Where does the signal lead?"

"It's already out of Nebrodi," a white haired man supplied. He turned his head towards a small blinking red light on a screen filled with nothing but numbers, and what seemed to be a map of some sort. "According to the coordinates, it's probably somewhere in Mount Etna."

"Felice," Donato called the attention of his white haired companion. "You don't think..."

"The Etna Branch had already started their Brain Development program yesterday," Felice said, confirming Donato's suspicion. "One of the children there must have connected with this boy's mind."

"An empty mind must have been easier to enter, hence, why the boy connected there instead of somewhere near." Donato thought out loud, thinking about the memoryless test subjects in the Etna branch. "Contact the Etna branch and ask them to keep an eye for unusual brain signals in one of their subjects." He ordered to no one in particular.

* * *

><p><em>"<em>Where are we...?"_ The girl moved to speak, but found no sound coming out of her mouth. Now she understood why she can't hear the boy._

_The space wasn't completely silent. Somewhere far away, a beat resounded, slowly filling the white canvas that was the space. It was a steady beat, soothing, calming. It sounded like her heartbeat._

Can the boy hear it too?_ She silently wondered._

_She looked at him, and studied his face. He was not smiling, but he was not frowning either... but somehow, his face looked far away from neutral. His eyes- or his eye seemed to be dulled out with something... was it tiredness? His right one looked bloodshot. It was swelling, and had angry cuts all over his eyelid, but it wasn't bleeding._

Is this a dream? _She asked no one. If so, then it was surely an odd one._

_The boy soon got bored of looking at the green eyed girl on the floor. He had to find a way out of this place. He refused to believe that he was already dead for he still had to come back home... He promised his mother that he'll be back._

_He turned his back towards the girl once more, and started to walk. He walked to the rhythm of the steady beats resounding in the vast space, his footsteps echoing in a constant rhythm. It was quite the relaxing pace to walk to._

_The girl simply sat there, watching as the boy's back slowly got farther, and farther away from her until it disappeared completely into the non-existent horizon. She stood up, but made no move to follow._

_The boy did not know how long he'd been walking, but he was slowly growing tired. Though he found it quite odd how how the tiredness he felt didn't come from his feet, but from his head, just like when he first learned how to read. It was mentally exhausting, but he kept walking._

_He soon found a figure in the horizon, though the person was much too far away for him to see. When he got close enough, he let his face show a little bit of irritation when he saw that it was still the same green eyed girl from before._

_She must have heard him come for she turned around just when he got close enough. She was a bit taller than him, so he had to tilt his head up slightly just to look at her dead in the eye, but he did not let the height difference prevent him to give her a look of superiority._

_It was such a demanding look that asked her. _"Just who the hell are you?_"_

_How she understood the unspoken question, she did not know. But she lifted her hand and showed him the back of it, letting him see the slightly fading __**#63**__ written on it._

Is she just like me? _he wondered as he remembered the number written on the back of his hand. _Of course no_t, he told himself. She's probably one of them. Idiotic like that Tony boy, pathetic like #14, a crybaby like #49, or perhaps dead like the three children who never came back to their white cell._

_She's nothing like him. They were nothing like him who understood everything._

* * *

><p>Ada Rumore was the 29-year old Head Researcher in the Etna branch. She was assigned lead to the Brain Development project, while she oversees other projects too. She was considered as one of the most valued scientist in the whole Estraneo, and was also one of the core people who developed the Possession Bullet.<p>

She was one of those to be blamed, she supposed. If it weren't for the damn bullet's creation, then none of this would happen. None of them would have to hide their identities and stay in their base to avoid the informal 'shoot-at-sight' game the other families seemed to enjoy, none of them would have to experience the loss of a loved one in the said 'game'.

That was how she lost her beloved sister. So one could only imagine her surprise when she saw the face of her beloved sister among the test subjects she was assigned with. #63 was the number given to the little girl who had a face similar to her sister, except while the girl had brown hair and green eyes just like Ada, her sister was a blonde haired, blue-eyed girl.

And now, she stood rigidly beside the girl whose head was connected to so many cables, reading the abnormal brain signals she's been sending out. Ada could only pray for the survival of the little girl. She wouldn't be able to stomach seeing the face of her sister dying again, because she knew that even if the girl manages to survive the little coma she was currently in, she would most likely be euthanized for failing as a test subject.

The door of the little room they were in suddenly flew open, and from there came a man in his late thirties. He stood there, panting for a while, trying so hard to catch his breath.

"Felice Romero from the Nebrodi branch called. He relayed a message from their Head asking to look out for an unusual brain signals from a specimen in the Brain Development project."

"But why here?" She couldn't help but feel a little bit suspicious. "Our branch is so far from theirs, so why here?"

"One of their specimens seemed to have connected with ours. They've theorized that upon the removal of the test subjects' memories, their brain barriers got removed too, making it easier to enter."

The news managed to calm Ada down, and she finally released the breath she didn't know she was holding.

"Tell them we've found her- _it_." Ada corrected herself, trying to follow the order of not treating the children as nothing more than test subjects, and to let them stay as emotionally unattached as possible. "Ask if they need anything from our specimen."

"Right away, ma'am." The man took off once more, with the message memorized in his head.

_She's safe... _She thought as she buried her face in her hands. It's wrong to look at the girl as if she's her sister, but Ada couldn't help it. _She's safe_.

* * *

><p>The Nebrodi branch is in chaos. Every single one of the workers in charge of specimen #69 are panicking. Though the boy's brain signal was located in a place where their men from another branch could reach, they had to make sure that the signal connected to one of Etna's specimen, and not to some random civilian. They had to make sure that the boy will not be able to reach someone outside of their institution.<p>

"The Etna branch's Head confirmed of unusual brain signals in one of their specimens." Felice informed his Head as soon as he got the message, instantly calming down the panicking mess that was his coworkers.

"I see," Donato replied but still seemed to worry about something. "It would be dangerous if this boy connected to somewhere else."

"Should we pull #69's mind out of there already?" One of his fellow scientist said.

They only intended for the boy to connect to someone in their location, which is why they were in such a place so far away from civilization. They've already theorized the mental strain the boy would he experiencing, but they were yet to calculate the toll it would take for the boy to connect with such distance.

They've seen so much progress already. They couldn't possibly stop there.

"Get him out of there."

* * *

><p><em>Blue eyes hardened as its owner stared at the hand of the green eyed girl in front of him. He studied the fading number on the back of her hand as he contemplated whether or not to introduce himself.<em>

_The girl seemed older than him, but he was probably smarter, or so he thought. In the case that they are not dead yet, then he could easily take advantage of her. Perhaps she knew the way out._ Is that why she's so calm?

_He could try and gain her trust, then have her show him the way. It was all too easy._

_He lifted his hand to show his number, but before the back of his hand could fully face the girl, it already faded- both the number and a part of his hand. His hand wasn't the only thing fading, he noticed. His whole body have already turned translucent, and so did the girl's._

_Slowly, his fingertips started breaking down, looking like pixels getting swept upwards. It didn't hurt, and for that, he was thankful. He looked over to the fading girl in front of him, and he wondered, how can anyone have such curious eyes?_

_And then, he disappeared._

* * *

><p>The next time he woke up, he was back to the room where he was strapped in. He could finally feel pain again, both from his right eye and his head. His memories were vague, but he was sure that the white place he had been was real, and so was the little girl he met.<p>

"You were a success," a blonde man said to him.

And he wondered...

Just who the hell was the green eyed girl?

* * *

><p><strong>This chapter's a bit shorter than the last. No Ken and Chikusa this time, but the next chapter would revolve around them. <strong>

**I was supposed to update this yesterday, but then my homework decided to slap me in the face. It will be a hell week for me, so I don't know if I will be able to update within the next 7 days or something. But still... Enjoy the chapter!**

**Akayuki Sawada: I'll be giving this arc to the Estraneo, so please do expect more of the experimentations. Thanks for the review!**

**xXBloodyIllusionXx: I didn't really intend for the Estraneo to resemble the Holocaust, but I did do a lot of readings so I guess it somehow manifested in the story. whoops. I personally find Mukuro(the older version and not my Estraneo-kid version) quite hard to write, and I've read in an oc review blog that he's practically unshippable with an OC, but I think that there's a chance for him to fall for someone who could actually relate to him...? Ayways, thanks for the review!**

**Thanks to Akayuki Sawada, ShadowSeraphin, Silvenstien, skittlexninja, xXDemonLawsXx, and to Lunaly for the follows, and to Akayuki Sawada, ShadowSeraphin, xXDemonLawsXx, and to snowdayz for the favorites.**


	4. The First Slice

**Chapter 3:**

Many days have passed since the first time those children have been brought into their personal hells, or at least it _felt_ like days for the occupants of the white cell. No one inside the room could really count the number of days easily, for there was no window inside the suffocating room.

Instead, they counted days by meals. They were given meals three times daily, and (un)surprisingly enough, each meal consisted of nutritious food for it would not do the Estraneo any good if their test subjects were to die of hunger or malnutrition.

Twenty meals have already passed them by, and according to #49(who was quite good at math), it was already the afternoon of their seventh day in the white cell. Dinner time, however, was quite different.

Instead of men clad in white, a man in a tuxedo brought them their cart of meal. The first thing they noticed was the black color of his tux. It had been quite a long time since they've seen a color other than white after all. The next thing they noticed was his face. His face was quite the grotesque picture. The face of the man had skins of different colors, most likely from different people, stitched sloppily, making him look like a twisted human-version of a quilt.

"I am Angelo Estraneo," he introduced himself. "I am the boss of the Estraneo family."

Though the word _angel_ had been his name, the children saw him as a figure far away from it. This man was a devil-_**the**__ devil_- who was responsible for the pain that they've been put through.

They wanted to do so much to the man. They wanted to hurt him, make him bleed, and cry, but they did none of those in fear of dying.

The man started explaining to them, in great detail, the misfortune of their family, and what was to be their fate if they didn't do anything about it.

"Our family-the mafioy that your parents belong to is ruled by me. I do not know how involved you children are with the mafia side of your parents, but the only thing that you need to know right now is that were are in distress."He let hisnwords sink in. "We are being persecuted. We've already lost so much of our members from all of these shenanigans."

"Our current goal is to make invincible soldiers out of you." He said bluntly. "You may all hate me now, but believe me, even if I didn't get to you first, surely, the mafia would have."

"Death is the only ending we have," he said with such a hard look on his eyes.

The little occupants of the room had a variety of reactions. There were a couple of children whom understood, or at least tried to understand the man in tuxedo, but the majority still became lost in anger, defeat and despair.

They didn't want this. None of them did. But they have no choice now.

"I'm sorry," the human patchwork said with intense sincerity.

He exited the room, preparing himself to give the same speech to the other _specimens_. He touched his face, the same one he himself had destroyed so that he could feel a fraction of the same suffering the children would experience. He was deluding himself into thinking that empathizing with them made his sins lighter.

It would be the last time he would show such emotion to them, he silently vowed.

* * *

><p>An hour after Angelo's visit, men in white came into their cell once more. All of them were taken into different rooms, and though they would much rather stay inside, they didn't really have any choice.<p>

Slowly, they were taken away. One by one until none of them remained.

* * *

><p>"Now, now. Be a good little experiment and stay still okay?" A man ruffled the black haired asian boy's head, an electric razor on his right hand.<p>

The man gently ran the razor along his head, shaving all of his black hair. The little boy was scared, but was even more upset. His mother loved his hair that he inherited from his father, he couldn't possibly come back home without them.

He closed his eyes in pain. _That's right... There's no more home to go back to._

After having his hair shaved off, #49 soon found himself strapped on a metal chair, but instead of the usual cables and machineries that littered the room, he found various cutting tools instead. The room no longer looked like the Pain Simulation room, but looked more like a surgery room.

He suddenly felt suffocated.

The boy gulped as one of the many people surrounding him touch his head and held it in place with some metallic ring. An oxygen mask was placed on his face, but it only suffocated him even more.

An IV fluid bag was placed high above him. It was connected to a long plastic tube with a small needle attached at the end. They positioned the needle to point towards a particularly visible vein on the back of his chained hand.

His eyes were getting heavier, and it was getting harder for him to stay awake. He'd much rather watch himself get torn apart awake, than violated while asleep. It was a grotesque thought, but it was something that made him want to stay awake, for his greatest fear was to die in his sleep.

"Preparation for lobotomy..." He heard one of them say, though it sounded as if the speaker was talking inside a tub filled with water inside his hazy mind.

_Lobotomy_*...? He knew that word. His thoughts were starting to jumble. He had read about it before, from the little library they had back at home. His eyes were growing heavier. Ah, he remembered now.

No. _No_. **No**!

And then he saw darkness.

* * *

><p>One of the brave souls whom tried to struggle was the blonde boy named Ken, who was trying to mimic his friend, Toby's, defiance. It earned him a hard hit at the back of the head, but he felt good, in a twisted way, knowing that he was at least trying to fight.<p>

He was taken into the same room as before, but with a new addition. There, on the corner of the room, was a huge machinery of some sort. The men in white were dressed differently too. Though the lab gowns remained, they now wore masks, gloves, and caps, as if preparing for a surgery.

His eyes widened in comprehension, and he felt his dinner making its way back up his throat in the form of bile. His previous spunk was long gone, and only the fear remained. He didn't want to be cut open, no, not at all.

But of course, he had no choice.

He tried to struggle as hard as he could, but the strength of the men in white was simply too overpowering for him. Soon, he found himself strapped on the metal bed, facing a heavy light above his body.

"This should be easy," he heard one of them tell a comrade.

One of them rubbed a cotton ball all over the bridge of his nose, while the other held a syringe, positioned readily near his face.

A shot, and then numbness, but the boy remained conscious. He was feeling light, and drowsy, but he could still see, with hazy eyes, a sharp scalpel being brought down to where his numbed right cheek was supposed to be. He couldn't feel the pain, but seeing his face getting cut was already enough to make him sick to his stomach.

A clean slice was made, running from one cheek to the other, exposing the part of the boy's nose where the bone and the cartilage met. Using a clamp, they pried open the cut to reveal his bare nasal cavity. And then they began working.

By the time they were done stitching and bandaging his freshly cut face, most of the anesthesia had already faded, and though the pain was somewhat bearable, the sensation that the operation had brought, wasn't.

He could smell _everything_. His senses were being bombarded by the unwanted scents. He couldn't stop.

He could smell the sweat of everyone in the room. He could smell the different perfumes worn by those who were surrounding him. He could smell the saltiness of his own tears. He could smell the blood in the room so strongly that he could practically taste it.

A man went beside him and started to work on the straps that were holding the boy in place. The boy gagged a little at the strong scent of antiseptic and sweat coming from the man. He could smell something else... something that was distinct to the man, and the man only.

Everyone had that scent, he realized. Though a lot of them had a musky scent, they would always somehow smell different. Some of them smelled sweet, some smelled like smoke, while some smelled like things he didn't recognize.

He felt himself getting nauseated. He wanted to get out of there.

Slowly, with the help of the man who unstrapped him, he made it back to their cell. The moment the door opened, he immediately wished that he had died instead.

Inside the white cell were occupants who smelled like sweat, urine, feces... and fear. Purely, unadulterated fear.

* * *

><p><strong>*Lobotomy: surgical severance of nerve fibers connecting the frontal lobes to the thalamus performed especially formerly for the relief of some mental disorders—called also<em>leukotomy. (Werriam-webster)<em>**

**I'm so, so sorry for the late update. I completely forgot that my midterms exam comes right after my hell week and aaaaaaah! My exam ends tomorrow so I'll be back to updating regularly after that. In the meantime, please enjoy this quick update. I love Ken and Chikusa.**

**Oh, and please review! It's good for the kokoro. /shot**

**xXBloodyIllusionXx: Ooooooh, I get what you mean with the love at first sight thingamabob. It's a personal peeve of mine, especially if it was done on a character with trust issues and stuff. Like, noooo! **

**I love cyberfood uvu. *sends cookies***

**Thanks to **xXBloodyIllusionXx and Akayuki Sawada for the reviews; to MuiL0VR, ShannyHeartsYou, L4N498, and Victini-Kumi for the follows, and; to MiiL0VR for the follow. *hearts*****


	5. To Understand

**Chapter 4:**

"Ken... Ken!"

The boy named Ken woke up to the shouts and the shaking of his friend. In his daze, he inhaled heavily, as if yawning. He immediately regretted doing that, when he found his senses getting bombarded by various unpleasant smell that made his nose hurt and his head pound.

"What is it, Tony?" He said as he clutched his bandaged nose.

"#49... He..." Tony started off, quite unsure of how to deliver the news.

"He what...?" Ken was far too impatient.

"He didn't come back from last night." Tony's face held grief, but of course, Ken didn't want to believe that.

"But that's impossible!" He knew that he was lying to himself. "How do you know that it's morning already?"

"I've been waiting all night for him." his voice quivered a little at the thought of his friend in the state of death. "They just delivered breakfast while you were still asleep."

The blonde boy shook his head. He didn't want to believe that his friend was dead already. But then again, death was not an impossible situation in their case, in fact, it seems like the most probable outcome of their stay in the goddamn laboratory. But that didn't mean that he understood why it had to be them, not even Angelo's explanation could explain their need to suffer.

He took a deep breath. It was their fate. Mourning would only get them nowhere.

Slowly, Tony lifted his hand and traced the bandage on Ken's face. His face cringed at the sight of the blood marring the what-used-to-be white bandage. "What happened to you?"

"Oh, this?" Ken said as he too, touched the bandage. He could still remember what they did to him. Every slice was embedded into his memories, but Tony didn't need to know that. He took a deep breath and put on a brave face. "They just decided to cut up my face or something."

"I can smell so much now, it's disgusting."

It's not that the room smelled really bad or anything, of course they all smelled like dirt, but more importantly, Ken seemed to start smelling emotions off of people. Other than the fact that all of the mixed scents made his head hurt, it would have been more bearable if the occupants of the room didn't reek so much of bad emotions.

He wasn't really sure how he knew what emotion was what, but perhaps it was the fact that he can smell the same emotions from him too.

"What about you?" Ken noticed the heavy amount of gauze and plasters littering his arms.

"It had something to do with fire... I think," the boy looked quite lost in his thoughts for a while. "I couldn't really remember much, other than the fact that I could feel my all my muscles aching when I woke up."

A small lull of silence overcame them. It wasn't an awkward one, but it wasn't a light one either. It was heavy, thick with the realization of their foreboding deaths, that, and the fact that in this place, death is already the _better_- no, the **best** option.

And of course, along the line that is their death, is the fear of losing each other. They only had each other to rely on after all. Though, by trying to draw out strength by leaning unto someone, they let themselves get attached to the point of their bond directly hurting them by the death of the person they've bonded with, as proven by the _death_ of #49.

"Do you really believe that #49 is already gone...?" Tony's words were careful.

"I..." _Is it bad of me to say that it wasn't all that surprising?_

"Ah, that was a stupid question." Tony mumbled. "Sorry."

It had only been a little over a week, and yet... Ken have noticed, Tony had already become less braver than he was before.

* * *

><p>Dull blue eyes opened up to an eggshell white colored ceiling. For a moment, he kept blinking, as if trying to remember where he was or how he got there in the first place. Without sitting up, he studied his surroundings.<p>

Something was amiss.

He was in a room not unlike a hospital ward. The walls were blindingly white, and so were the sheets of the bed he was lying on. Basically, everything was white... Almost. There, on one of the room's four walls was a small window, giving him a glimpse of what looked like a sunny morning. And on that window were **black** bars, resembling those in a prison cell, keeping him inside the white yet dark room, and away from the bright sun.

He closed his eyes and tried to recall anything that happened to him before waking up in the room. He remembered being shaved off of all his hair, bound on a metal chair, pricked by a needle, and...

His eyes widened. _Lobotomy_. That's what they called it. It was the process of severing the nerves of the frontal part of the brain, or so it said on that science book they had at home.

His hand carefully felt around his head, only to have crisp bandages meet his little hand. He found no hair either, obviously shaved off for surgical purposes.

Never more in his life had he felt so violated. He felt unclean, to be exposed in such a way to those monsters in white gowns.

He felt different, though he could not exactly pinpoint the reason why.

The door creaked open, and in went a man in her late twenties, or was it his early thirties...? To him, he looked different. He wasn't wearing those gowns and caps that covered everyone from head to toe, instead, he was clad in a crisp button-up shirt, a pair of slacks, and a thick looking corporal blazer. All in white, of course, but still a refreshing break from the blur of white that he always saw. He could at least see skin, and not just cold eyes.

But still, as harmless-looking as he was, #49 was fully aware that he was with the enemy. In this place, every adult was an enemy.

"I'm Donato Celeste." The man introduced himself briefly. "I'll be in charge of you."

But still, Chikusa wondered, why was he here?

"You'll be isolated for a while..." It was as if the man knew what he was thinking, and answered the unasked question. "Brain surgery is a sensitive one, so you'll have to stay here where everything's sterilized to avoid infections."

Normally, lobotomy is a process that did not require the brain to be completely bare, but along with that, they also wanted to damage a few nerves in the boy's amygdala, but it was such a sensitive procedure that they stopped after a short while.

The man checked up on him for a little while, taking his temperature, blood pressure and the likes. At the end of his check up, the man gave him a small pill, along with a glass of water.

The boy eyed it, not quite sure whether or not to obey.

"Relax," the man said. "It's just a pain-killer for your stitches."

The man made to move out the door, but stayed back for a moment. He tilted his head slightly, in order to see the boy better.

"Another thing..." The man pursed his lips. "How are you feeling?"

And then it hit the boy, harder than a truck slamming unto a frail body. Harsher than a storm raining on a naked man.

_I can't feel anything_. No shock, no hatred, no nothing.

* * *

><p>"Ada..." A brown haired girl took a glance at the woman shuffling a deck of card on the floor in front of her.<p>

Ada's hand paused as she regarded the little girl in front of her. It was obvious that the woman had already taken a liking to the green eyed girl, the gentle smile on her face was already proof enough.

"A boy..."

The woman was puzzled. There was no boy on the building, save for the scientists, and the little girl was yet to met one. _Was it someone from her memory then?_ Ada mentally shook her head. _That was not possible, her memory had already been wiped clean._

Her paranoia was cut short, as the girl in front of her spoke.

"Seven days ago..."

Ada released the breath she unknowingly held. She must have been pertaining to the specimen from the Nebrodi Branch. She resumed her shuffling in relief.

"In my dreams... I met this boy," #63 eyed the cards intently. "But, it was not a dream, was it?"

Ada's eyes widened. None of her colleague had told the girl of what had transpired, not of the meeting inside the girl's head. "How do you know that?"

"Because I dreamt last night." She replied, as if explaining all of Ada's unasked questions. "It felt different. It was much more vivid than my dream last night."

"How so...?"

"I could not control my dream last night."

Ada smiled. The girl was showing progress. To be able to distinguish dreams, and reality whilst inside a dream was an astounding feat. Methodically, she laid down the cards, face down, in front of the girl. She arranged them into six columns and six rows. Thirty-six cards, all in all.

"There," she said with a little clap. From the pocket of her white coat, she produced a stopwatch. "Can you match them all?

The girl started working, choosing not to call out Ada's blatant refusal to elaborate further.

Flip. _Flip_. **Flip**. The room was quiet, save for the noise the cards made as the girl flipped them, trying to match them together. _Click_, went the stopwatch, just as then girl flipped the last unmatched card in front of her.

"Three minutes, and fifty-four seconds." Ada said out loud. "A minute, and thirty second faster than the last. Good job."

#63 smiled, feeling elated from the compliment, even though she did not understand why Ada had to time her work. Actually, she did not understand a lot of things. She did not understand why she was here, how she got here, who Ada was. She did not even know who _she_ was, much less remember anything before she got here.

But it was all right. Ada was nice, her four cellmates were nice, she even found her little cell to be nice simply because Ada visited her constantly in that room. Even if the wound on her head would sometimes hurt, it was all right. Or at least, she tried to convince herself.

Simple-minded, and contented. That's what she was. And it made Ada's heart break, knowing full well that the little girl's bliss would not last long. The girl's first surgery would be done soon. They would develop her brain, then stomp on her heart.

To create a foolproof hardware and databank was their plan for her, along with the four other girls she shared a cell with. They would trespass and hijack her mind, them bombard it with information. They would activate the girl's whole brain, and discard her body afterwards.

It made Ada nauseous, both at the girl's future, and the fact that she would be one among those who would be handling the little girl into her bleak future.

To lose her sister was already heart-breaking, and to lose her the second time would be even more so (even if the said person only resembled her dead sister). She willed herself to push back the bile rising in her throat. She smiled, because none of that matters now, not in front of the girl who bears her sister's face.

* * *

><p>Scissors, scalpels, and blades clattered and littered a metal cart. Hands felt and passed their ways through the small table of surgical instruments. All of them were focused on the indigo-haired boy on a metal table.<p>

With sharp precision, snipped off the thin bundle of nerves and flesh connecting the boy's eye and brain. Off, went his eye, discarded into a metal pan that laid on the cart. A new eye was placed where his was cut off. It was crimson in color, contrasting greatly against his pale complexion.

Upon connecting the new eye, it turned foggy. The round, black iris seemed to become solid, then melted and liquified, swirling in the crimson pool and turning it murky. It stayed that way for a few minutes, but it seemed like hours for the white clad people surrounding the eye.

The black color started to bond together, as if dirt to charcoal. Slowly, it started taking in a more solid form until it displayed the Kanji for the number One. From behind their masks, the surgeons smirked smugly.

They have done it. They have successfully turned fiction into fact, and prove the impossible. They have played god, and won.

* * *

><p><strong>The First Life<strong>

When the indigo-haired boy came to be, he was surprised not to find himself in the white cell that he had grown accustomed to seeing. Instead, he woke up to a different one that still resembled a hospital's.

He could not move.

He was laying face down, his head turned on one side so that he could breath. He felt warm... Really warm. He was laying on flesh and skin, but he was unsure whose, due to the closeness.

As if watching a movie from an actor's point of view, 'his' hand went up to his face, shocking him with tiny fingers balled into a fist. He did not understand what was happening, but he only knew one thing: it was him.

"What will we name him...?

The person he was laying on, that he assumed to be bis mother, muttered a name that he did not catch, but he was sure that it was not his. She lifted him up, letting him see a glimpse of her face. He did not understand, _she doesn't look like my mom._

"_I love you,_" the woman said to his little form, and he felt his heart clench, knowing full well that the words of love the woman had spoken was not for him, but for the baby who owned the body he was residing in.

The images turned blurry from there. The years passed by in a literal blur, too fast for him to catch. All that he learned was that he was born from a noble family who belonged to the highest of the high.

"_I love you._" This time, it was spoken by a different person, and though the person seemed elated, the boy himself felt nothing but bitterness against those words.

The blurred images stopped, allowing him to see a glimpse on the person's adulthood. He also had a lover, who had hair as gold as the sun and eyes brighter than emerald. He loved her truly, or at least that's what it seemed like for the little boy. And then the world spun once more, turning the images into nothing but a mess of voices and colors.

He felt a heartbreak and despair, followed by anger. He made a vow.

And then he died.

#69 woke up once more, though he did not remember ever falling asleep. He woke up to a place much different from his cell, and the hospital from his dream. Instead, he found himself in front of a rusty metal gate that reached the sky- the _crimson_ sky. Everything was red. The sky, the ground, the air, all of them were red. All of them were burning.

With a deafening creak, the gate opened.

He found himself in hell.

* * *

><p><strong>Oh look, an update! Huuuhaaaa, I'm sorry for the late update, college hasn't been very kind to me ;w<strong>**;**

**Akayuki Sawada: I just have so many plans for Tony that it breaks my heart to know that I'll have to kill him off at some point /cryyyy**

**xXBloodyIllusionXx: I've read a lot of fics that portrays the Estraneo family as the epitome of evil, without reading into WHY they were 'evil'. And even though it would never justify their deeds, I didn't want to write about another flat villain. I mean, even Ken didn't seem to hate Estraneo that much(he seemed angrier at the families who persecuted them). And actually, the lack of elaboration on the experiments pushed me into writing this fic(blame the science dork in me).**

**Thanks to **Akayuki Sawada, xXBloodyIllusionXx, and Scarlet Crown for the reviews; to KnightAngelSupreme, Okatusareawesome101, OrangePopsicleStick, Scarlet Clown, Luka14, RedOwl96, Nadeshiko291210, cookiepandaluv, and killer1316 for the follows, and; to Okatusareawesome101, The Holy Pineapple, Nocturnal Interlude, Nadeshiko291210, ForeverinWonderland, and cookiepandaluv for the favorites. /hugs  
><strong>**

****please review uvu****


	6. The Red Sea

**Chapter 5:**

_He was falling. Deeper and deeper. Faster and faster. The wind around his little body felt like a thousand needles sinking into his skin. He's been falling for so long now, and yet, he can't seem to see any ground to fall into. In his speed, everything around him turned into a blur of red._

_He did not know which way was up, and which way was down. He closed his eyes, feeling nauseated by the prospect of his own death. Vertigo overwhelmed his senses, making a mess out of his mind, as if it wasn't already so much of a mess. But still, he was quite relieved. At least, the impact would kill him instantaneously._

_He let himself peek a little and there, in the mess of red, he saw something black. He registered a sound, of faint waves and thick hum. It was a sea, he realized. He only had a moment to gulp in the stale air before he found himself plunged on the inky water._

* * *

><p>A resounding beep filled the room, and only those who truly listened would realize that it was not a long single sound, but numerous succession of beeps. The lines of the monitor had long stopped pulsating up and down, and only a single line remained.<p>

It was a flatline, a universal symbol of death. If the said line were to be seen on any hospital in the world, doctors and nurses would surely be flocking around the person whose heart had stopped.

But it wasn't the case for this place, not in the Estraneo. There, the doctors remained in their place, patiently waiting. They all had such anxious expressions, making it seem that they held concerns for the boy in the metal table, but of course, that was not possible. Their anxiety came simply due to the fact that they could not afford to contain their excitement for an experiment's success.

Clocks ticked, and time passed. Everything was still, almost as still at the lifeless boy in front of them. Two minutes... Two minutes had passed since the boy's death.

* * *

><p><em>The boy found his back slamming into the raging waves. The speed that he fell into had been enough to surely kill a man, but that didn't seem to be the case for the place. He felt his body crumple in pain from the impact, making his little muscles numbed by the ice-cold water.<em>

_He involuntarily gasped for air, but his lungs only got filled by a coppery taste. The water felt thick, proven by how hard it was to maneuver his limbs to propel his body upwards, and out of the water. He did not know the way out, and though his eyes were open, he could not see anything. It seemed like the water did not let light pass through._

_He was getting weaker, and his thrashing became less motivated as the seconds ticked by. He stopped struggling against the waves, and simple let his body go limp. That was when he noticed it: a red light just above his face. He kicked for one last time, giving it all his remaining strength._

_He reached the water's surface, coughing and sputtering. He took huge gulps of the disgustingly precious air, savoring the taste of decay, as if his every breath would be his last._

_Above him was a light that resembled a sun, except, it's color was redder than red. He raised a hand to swipe his bangs away from his face, only to be met by the curious sight of his red hands. The water was black, so how was that possible?_

_It hit him. From the start, he already doubted the authenticity of the water, but nothing could have prepared him from the shock upon realizing that the water was actually blood. Thick, coagulated blood._

_From across his vision, he saw a land. It was small and had a huge rock perched on it, taking up so much space, but it was still a land. Somehow, it filled him with hope. It was as if he was wondering that maybe he did not have to die._

_He shook his head. 'It's not the time to think about death'_

_"I have to live, I have to live," he silently chanted to himself like a mantra. "I have to go home."_

_With a breath of new air, he swam with his remaining strength. He padded, growing slightly stronger than before._

_He was only a couple of meters away from the island when he felt something grabbing his ankle._

* * *

><p>The beeping of the heart monitors suddenly fluctuated, and at the same time, one of the boy's legs suddenly kicked the air. It surprised the scientists greatly, but before they could comprehend what has happened, the boy's heart ceased to beat once more.<p>

The air turned quite thick after that. All the occupants of the room were all on their toes, waiting for a reaction. It puzzled them, and made them wonder, _what is happening inside his head?_

They resumed their waiting. Their eyes as sharp as a hawk's staring at its prey. They hoped that the boy would wake up soon.

* * *

><p><em>He sunk down into the black waves, breathing in the coagulated blood in the process. He tried to kick away what ever it was that caught his ankle, managing to find his head back to the surface of the sea.<em>

_He let his eyes wander behind him, only to find hands- **human hands**, surfacing from the water. Instead of feeling relieved at he sight of other humans in the desolated place, he felt only fear as the arms extended into impossibly long lengths, all reaching for him._

_One grabbed him by the hair and pushed his head down into the black sea. The others grabbed and held his limbs, restricting his movements and preventing him from getting any closer to the small island._

_He could feel the oxygen escaping him, leaving him breathless. He could feel his lungs burning, and going dry. It only took him seconds to completely run out of air, and start automatically gasping for breath. Of course, he only got nothing but more of the coppery liquid into his lungs._

_He suddenly felt something snap, and it didn't take him long to realize that it had been his femur that broke. He screamed soundlessly, his tears mixing with the thick liquid around him._

_The arms that held him back, loosened, as if letting him go. Trying not to move his legs, he used his arms to propel himself out of the water._

_His eyes widened at the sight in front of him. There, sitting on the huge boulder on the red island was a man that didn't look older than twenty. He was sickly thin, to the point of beyond malnourishment. The man's thin black hair bellowed slightly due tot he non-existent wind. On his head was a pair of horns that curved outwards._

_The man suddenly stood up from the boulder, revealing a body clad only with thin cloth and a huge belt consisting of linked oval-shaped brass, hiding only the lower half of his body. His cheek looked sunken, and his eyes were hollow. But it was none of those that intrigued the boy. It was the thick-looking black threads that sew his mouth shut._

_"Humans are quite disgusting, aren't they?" The man spoke even though his mouth stayed shut._

_The boy didn't reply. He merely let his body catch a rest, floating freely above the waves, though he was far from relaxed. He was quite wary of the thin man in front of him, actually._

_"I remember being a man once," he left the island completely, letting the water reach halfway his calf. "It was wonderful."_

_"What are you doing here, little boy?" He said as he reached the floating child,though oddly enough, the deep water never reached past his knees. "It's rare for us to get someone as young as you. Kids around your age tend to stay nice and innocent, you know?"_

_"Are you a psychopath, then?" He grinned. "I had been a psychopath once."_

_He suddenly grabbed the boy's broken calf, making the scream out due to the white hot pain that moved from his calf and into the entirety of his little body. The horned-man's eyes widened. "Flesh."_

_"People usually come down here rotting and decaying, you know?" He removed his hand from he boy's calf, grabbing his face instead. "You're quite the special one, are you?"_

_"It's been so long since I've tasted flesh." He squeezed the boy's jaw, bringing their faces close. "I've always liked my meat young."_

_The boy involuntarily flinched, and though he wanted nothing more than to scream for his mother in the hands of the devil in front of him, he refused to show his fear._

_"It's quite unfortunate that I cannot eat anymore," he suddenly let go of the boy. "Oh, well."_

_"Maybe the **people** down there would like a taste of a young meat."_

* * *

><p>A loud snap resounded in the room, sending the white-clad men into a state of panic as they saw the source of the sound. There, on the table, was a boy lying down, looking as if he was in deep sleep, though the heart monitor beside him told otherwise.<p>

It was still the same boy that they had been observing hours ago, never moving from his position mostly because of the fact that he was both tied up and dead. It left the scientists baffled at the sight of the boy's right leg- jaggedly broken in half, with the bone poking out of his skin.

"Go prepare a cast!" The head surgeon barked. His eyes were wide at the odd phenomenon.

* * *

><p><em>The arms shot up once more, this time, coming from below the boy. They grabbed ahold of him and proceeded to drag him down into the water. One of the hands found it's way to his face and covered both his nose and mouth with one hand, squeezing tighter as the seconds ticked by.<em>

_The boy's heart pounded hard against his rib cage, threatening to tear through his ribs. He could feel his ears bursting from the pressure, and his lungs turn into mush._

_The hands flipped him over, sot hat he was sinking face first. Ahead of him was a bright light tearing into the thick and dark sea. The hands dragged him closer and closer tot he light._

_His eyes squinted due to the light, only to have them widen in fear at the sight surrounding it. In front of his face was what seemed like to be a mouth of some sort. It was wide open, and vaguely resembled deep blue holes, except, it had sharp teeth lining its inside walls, making it looking like a grotesque abyss. In the middle of abyss, far down into the bottom that he could not see, was the light peering up at him, beckoning him._

_He looked around the hole, surprised upon seeing human remains stuck in between the teeth. Bones were everywhere, twisted and cracked in all sort of way, resembling a very odd museum of abstract sculptures._

_He would have to admit that he was scared, undeniably, even. His fear only intensified as he drew nearer and nearer to the opening of the gigantic tried to struggle against the hands that held him, but only succeeded in bringing pain to his newly broken leg._

_He reached the opening, and its walls began to shake. He saw the teeth, slowly but surely closing in on him. They were still too far away from him now, but it was already given that soon, it would come pierce his skin and grind his bones, not unlike its other victims._

_He closed his eyes, and wished that he was anywhere but here. His right eye grew hot, and the last thing he saw were the teeth closing in on him._

* * *

><p>Everyone was silent as they stared at the heart monitor connected to an indigo-haired boy on the metal table. Three hours after his heart first stopped, it started beating again in perfect rhythm with the rise and fall of his chest.<p>

A chuckle disturbed the tense atmosphere, followed by another. Soon enough, all the occupants of the room were now chuckling, some holding on to their stomachs as if they just had heard the joke of the century.

"It was a success!" One of them laughed.

They were now one step closer to the top.

A new type of beeping was heard, and all stopped and turned to the brain monitor adjacent to the one connected to the boy's heart. The boy had involuntarily connected his mind somewhere else, or so it seems. It was someone from Mt. Etna again.

They smirked, they bow realized that for as long as the boy had a mind to escape to, they could send him to hell over and over again.

"Call the Head Researcher! This is his forte." The head surgeon barked out orders.

* * *

><p><em>He found himself waking up to a white space for the second time that week. He studied the place from the floor, half expecting the green-eyed girl lying on the floor again, but to his surprise, he found her sitting up, looking at him intently as she shuffled a deck of cards in her little hands.<em>

_He sat up, wincing as his right leg moved in the process. He glared at the girl in front of him, even though she had long looked away from him._

_The hands of the girl shuffled the cards rather sloppily, constantly having a few cards slip out of her grasp. She laid them on the floor, face down, matching the pace of the beats resounding in the white room._

_He was about to ask them what they were doing there when he suddenly remembered that they could not speak in the white space._

_When the girl finished laying down the cards, her eyes found his once more. She looked down to his leg and her eyes widened as she saw the broken leg, noticing it for the first time._

_She got up and slowly tiptoed out of her cards. He gave the girl a glare as she neared him, as if trying to ward her away with the piercing stare. He smacked her hand away as she tried to reach for his leg. But still, the girl was persistent._

_She grabbed both of his hands with one of hers, and even though she was obviously not strong enough to hold him down, he was still unable to move. He eyed her in distaste, not liking the fact that their height difference became much more obvious at their proximity._

_She lowered her hands, and he braced himself for the pain. But none came._

_Instead, his leg had miraculously healed. He flexed his leg, liking the fact that he felt no pain. He turned to her, but she had already walked back to her cards. He watched her solve the memory game flawlessly, taking only a few minutes to finish._

* * *

><p>"#63!" Ada shook the little girl, trying to wake her up.<p>

"Ada, calm down." Said Sergio, one of the Brain Development's chief physicians just like Ada. "Irma already gave a call to the Nebrodi Branch."

"Those Nebrodi people ought to stop having unannounced joint projects like this, or at least give us a warning the next time." She ran a hand through her hair as she assessed any head injuries that #63 might have obtained after suddenly falling unconscious. "This project is as important as theirs too."

"Tell that to Donato, he'll listen to you." He said, referring to the Etna Head's lover from the other branch.

"I doubt it." She seriously did. "Our projects come first before anything."

But surprisingly, that wasn't the case for Ada. If she had the choice, then she'll willingly trade everything for the safety of the unconscious girl in her arms.

* * *

><p><em>The little brunette continued on with her game, monotonously finishing and starting all over again. She did not let her eyes wander towards the boy, but she kept on observing him from her peripheral vision.<em>

_It struck her as odd, the way that the boy would just pop out of nowhere in the middle of the day, leaving her body unconscious. They weren't in the real world, she figured out that much. But they weren't inside a dream either for everything was simply just too vivid to be a dream._

_The place was something she could control at her will. She realized that, the moment she transported back tot his place with the boy. The amount of the questionably red liquid that soaked the boy left her frightened, making her wish for something to distract her. Someone must have heard her wish, as a deck of cards appeared before her not a moment later._

_When the boy woke up, was when she finally let her eyes linger on him long enough to notice he jagged bone protruding out of his skin. It was a gamble, really, when she tried to touch the boy's leg. He tried to struggle, but stopped the moment she silently wished for him to stop._

_She closed her eyes,and wished for his leg to be fixed. She turned away from him the moment he healed, unable to stomach the red that bathed him, unwilling to let the boy see her shaking from the familiar stench of copper radiating off of him._

_She did not dare to try and talk to the boy, not if she wanted her breakfast to stay inside her stomach. She merely let him observe her._

_The boy stood up, flexed his leg a little and started to walk towards her. Her hands started to shake, letting a card slip from her fingers- the same card that she was about to flip._

_Red liquid dripped down from the boy's body, disturbing the calm silence, and tainting the white floor. He stepped over the cards laid out in front of the girl, soaking them with the coagulated blood._

_He found her shaking to be quite odd. 'Is she scared of me?" He wondered._

_The space started to shake, and the previously serene beats resounding the white became erratic. It was responding to the emotions of the girl in front of him, he realized._

_He lifted his hand, and opened his mouth to try and calm the girl down. But before she could utter a word, the world turned black._

* * *

><p><strong>I should seriously stop torturing poor little Mukuro. Anyways, here's an update! I noticed that I write a lot of Mukuro, and not enough of Ken and Chikusa. Hmmm, maybe I'll write a little something for Tony next? I like him already.<strong>

**Akayuki Sawada: Hshs, I still have a lot in store for Chikusa!(not to mention how they became insanely good at combat). #63's fate would be a surprise, I guess? There's hardly any fun in giving away secrets early in the story, imo. Anyways, thank you for the review.**

**MaskedChaos: I've noticed that a lot of people forget that the Estraneo weren't just evil for the sake of being evil. I blame the lack of detailed backgrounds in both the anime and manga. Oh, and about the unshippable thingy, I just found that on a ocreview blog. You're right, a relationship with him would be possible as long as there is a good foundation, and Mukuro combined with a fast-paced relationship certainly do not mix well. **

**Z0mbieMart: I'm glad that you liked it. Thanks for the review!**

**Thanks to LucediDio, MaskedChaos, Yoshikuni Koharu, 91, kutra, saya78, captain-lena, sin kx, AkaMizu-chan, Celestial-Mage231, Thao Sama, and Z0mbieMart for the follows, and; to LucediDio, MaskedChaos, Yoshikuni Koharu, 91, kutra, terfa, Millenia-the-wings-of-valmar, AkaMizu-chan, KuroShiroNeko-chan and Z0mbieMart for the favorites. *hugs***

**Please, review! your feedbacks matter a lot to me ;w;**


	7. Sedated Dream

**Chapter 6:**

A brown haired girl that lay unconscious on the floor suddenly woke up, kicking and screaming, like she had been in a nightmare. She stopped the moment she was comforted by a woman in a lab coat, who looked a lot like her. Though she had managed to calm down, her body never ceased to tremble.

"Celi-" Ada's eyes widened as she almost called the girl by her sister's name. "#63, tell me what happened."

"That boy..." Ada already knew who she was referring to. "He was covered in blood. He was hurt and bleeding."

Ada felt herself relax. Blood and pain was a common occurrence in their field of medicine, but combined with inhuman views and mafia, it could now be considered as necessary as breathing. Especially in Estraneo where there were only a couple of projects that didn't require much blood.

It was only the girl's luck that she had landed herself in what was probably the least painful project of them all. But the longer Ada thought about it, it became clearer that it was less of luck and more of the girl passing all the requirements to be in the Brain Development project.

"It's okay," she hushed the girl in a manner that she knew they weren't allowed, but there's no one else watching but the four cellmates of the girl. "It's... _Normal_."

Ada briefly wondered if it was her fear of the boy that sent her in frenzy, but it seemed that she was more concerned than afraid. She pondered whether or not to use the event to try and ask the Nebrodi Branch to cut off any more brain connections, claiming that it was interfering with their own development.

She mentally shook her head. She's much more intellectual than emotional. She's lonely, but certainly not foolish enough to try and hold back any experimentations, for the Estraneo's development came first.

She's also perfectly aware that she would have to let go of the girl someday, if the experiments to be done on her didn't kill the girl first. Lastly, Ada also knew that she was not supposed to get close to the girl no matter how much she looked like her deceased sister, but she let it slide.

"But," the girl asked out of curiosity. "Why?"

Ada's words were stuck on her throat. Why, indeed?

"It's for the greater good."

She very much doubted her own answer, but it was the closest thing she had to justify their actions if that was even possible. No amount of logic-bending and truth-twisting can ever make their actions as relatively good, and they can't even blame the mafia for their actions, for it was the path that they chose.

Ada looked over the girl. She didn't dare ask again, but it was obvious from her face that she was not convinced with the answer she received. Ada's eyes darted away from the girl's and rested on #63's forehead. Her bangs were away from the girl's face, so Ada could clearly see the burn mark on her forehead, and if she squinted a little, she could almost imagine the stitch mark that would soon adorn her pretty little head.

* * *

><p>Three months after her last meeting with the indigo-haired boy, #63 found herself kicking and screaming once more, but this time, it was against the hands of white-clad men whom held electric razors in their hands. They were the same men who had been taking her cellmates away the past week, and so far, none of them has yet returned.<p>

There were many things that she doesn't know and can't remember, and so she was stuck to relying on her intuition. All of the alarms in her head were currently ringing, telling her to run. She did try, but her puny little self was no match to the scary men in white.

It was all too easy for the burly men to shave her head clean, whisk her into a tiled, sterile room, and strap her down a metal chair. On the higher part of the chair, right where its back part ended, was a metallic halo of some sort.

They attached the halo to her head, securing it in place, and she bit her lips in resignation. She closed her eyes tightly, preventing the tears of fear from escaping.

An oxygen mask was placed on her face, but it only seemed to make it harder for her to breath. She felt a prick on the back of her left hand, only to see a cannula attached directly to an unlabeled bag of intravenous fluid. Another prick on her arm and her consciousness suddenly went out like a light.

* * *

><p><em>There was darkness, silence, and nothing else.<em>

_Slowly, from somewhere far, a beat started to resound. It went on rhythmically, falling in an orderly fashion. The thumping went on, two at a time, resembling the beating of a heart. Though rugged and battered, the heart went on beating._

_And suddenly, there was light: a spotlight. In the middle of the light sat a green eyed girl, with her legs sprawled out in front of her. She looked around from her place on the floor, and wondered if she was in the same 'dream' where she would usually meet the indigo haired boy._

_She stood up, and properly scanned the place. She breathed a sigh of relief when she realized that he was not there. She certainly wouldn't want to see so much blood again._

_She was relieved, but she was also sad. It was the first time that she saw the place with any shade other than white. The pure white, of course, not the slightly yellowish white of the ceiling of her little cell, nor the blue-tinted white tiles that went with it._

_It was lonely in there. The space was was wide as a field, and yet, she felt as if she was stuck inside a tiny closet. She decided that she didn't like the feeling of loneliness, nor the sight of darkness._

_She closed her eyes and wished for a companion, but unlike the other times, it would seem that nobody heard her wish this time._

_The loneliness grew, almost to the point where she wanted to see the indigo-haired boy again, bloody and all._

_And so she started to imagine her own. Flesh started to form right before her eyes, steaming and bubbling, taking a form of a lumpy flesh that could fit into the palm of her hands. An apricot-colored bubble suddenly formed before it popped, creating a thin film that covered the flesh in an unhurried pace. It suddenly throbbed, and formed ripples on its surface. Slowly, the flesh began to take on an odd form, as though someone had hand-molded it to create a small knob and curling it into the bits of flesh that was left. It vividly resembled a fetus._

_Time seemed to stop all of the sudden. The air turned still, the light grew darker, and the beats pounded louder._

_A crack suddenly rumbled, startling the green-eyed girl. She tried to find the source oft he sound, only to be met by a sight of a solid bone-like thing protruding out of the apricot-flesh. Another crack was heard as the bone grew in number and size, stretching the_ _flesh beyond what was possible._

_The knob on the flesh also stretched out as the bone beneath it grew larger. Dents appeared on places where the bone seemed hollow, creating the contours of a malformed skull attached to a too-thin body._

_The girl gave a gasp, and only creaks and pops of bones followed. The bones continued growing, and the skin continued stretching. Little by little, the thing grew until it became the size of an average adult, although, it looked more like an art project-gone-wrong rather than an actual human being._

_In a moment, everything stopped, and the girl finally let out the breath that she had unknowingly held. Her knees trembled and threatened to buckle at the sight of the malnourished creature in front of her._

_She shook her head. **I couldn't have made this...**_

_**I couldn't have.**_

_Everything about the creature was ugly and grotesque. It was a horrifying sight, fueled by the fear of the near-hyperventilating girl. She gave out a strangled sound at the back of her throat as a loud rip filled the air. The skin near the creature's facial cavity had torn, leaving behind uneven gaping holes on its eye sockets, nostrils and mouth._

_The once calm and synchronized beats turned erratic, drumming so hard that it made the girl's ears hurt._

_The creature had curled up on itself from its position on the ground, as if trying to hide itself from the girl's fearful eyes. Slowly, its neck twisted until it was facing her with have to move its body, showing its melting face. She stepped back at the sight of the creature that looked so human and... something else._

_It had no hair anywhere on its body, it had two pitch black irises that seemed to stare right through her, and had a thin layer of flesh where its nostrils and mouth should be. With surprising weakness, it tried to reach out to the girl, making her back away and scream._

_"S...s-cared..." The creature croaked out in a muffled raspy voice through the skin over its mouth. "Ye... You're s...cared..."_

_Her breath got shorter, and shakier. Her eyes watered. She covered her gaping mouth with her sweaty hands as bile started to rise._

_The space started to crumble, and their shared spotlight started to flicker. She squeezed her eyes shut, as if trying to make the creature disappear._

* * *

><p>Metals clinked, shoulders bumped, surgical instruments flew, and numerous hearts ran in panic all because of a single reason. The said reason came in the form of a heavily sedated child with her skull cut open for the world too see.<p>

It wasn't that they had messed up in the surgical procedures. They've been actually very careful in executing every step that they have long mastered in their lives as professional surgeons.

The problem was the child itself. Despite the sure amount of the sedatives in her blood, it would seem that she has managed to slowly inch her way out of her tranquilized state, judging by her heartbeat and the frantic twitching of the fingers in her right hand.

It baffled the white-clad surgeons around her, but they had no more time to think, and had to act now. The choices they had were simple: they would either have to gave her another dose of the sedative or let her wake up.

The problem with the first choice was that she was still a child, and if she had been an adult, another shot of sedative could cause overdosage that could either kill her or send her into an induced coma. Now, the problem with the second choice would obviously be her reaction upon waking up. Flailing wouldn't really be much of a problem in this scenario, the pain, however, would be a big one.

* * *

><p><em>The single spotlight illuminating the nameless girl flickered, and so did the world around her. The world started trembling, seemingly stretching out until she felt farther from the disgusting creature that was just a meter away from her two seconds ago.<em>

_Her vision became slightly blurred, like mud on water. The floor beneath her disappeared, and she became disoriented. She can't see anything, can't feel anything. She didn't even know anymore which way was up or down._

_Her tears finally fell, but not because of her previous fear, but because she knows that its all right, and that everything's going to be all right._

_She's very much aware that she's in a place where her dreams, hallucinations, and reality meet. And right now... she's finally going back to reality where she could see Ada again._

* * *

><p>Time flew, and seconds passed. The little girl's closed eye lids trembled. She was waking up.<p>

In a moment of panic, a hand shot up, holding another dose of sedative loaded into a syringe.

Breaths were held, and seconds passed. The girl stilled. The air stilled.

A loud beep shattered the silence, followed by another.

An empty syringe slipped from trembling hands, scattering into pieces. Its previous holder soon followed, breathing unevenly at the sudden adrenaline rush.

"Oh God..."

"You okay, Ada?"

Ada nodded and stood up, knees buckling for a while before finally steadying. Everything was good. Everything was all right.

* * *

><p><em>The flickering light finally died. But the girl felt as though something didn't feel right. She was confused. Normally, this would be the part where she would finally wake up, safe and sound back in her little white cell.<em>

_The ground beneath her came came back, piece by piece, like pixels coming together to create a blank picture. The light went back on, blinding her momentarily._

_She blinked her eyes a few times before finally regaining her vision. But what she saw next made her scream. The thing that she had made was only a few steps away from her, crawling closer and closer in an uncomfortable position with its torso and face scraping the 'ground' and its trembling limbs trying to carry its weight._

_The girl wanted to run, but her legs felt like lead. Her feet were firmly planted on the 'ground', unmoving and unfeeling._

_The creature finally, a measly step away from her, reached out a trembling limb. It latched its hand on her leg with a weak grip, but it was more than enough for the girl's legs to finally give out._

_"Go away!" She kicked its hand away, and tried to propel herself backwards, away from the malnourished lump of flesh and bones in front of her. "Go away! Disappear!"_

_"Don...t. Don't... be." The creature continued to crawl. "Don't... be... S-scared."_

_"**Please**."_

_They uttered the word at the same time. Their words blended, not by voice, but by the desperation it held._

_It made the girl stop from trying to get away. She made no move to approach the creature, but stayed still as it crawled towards her. She watched its bony limbs as it tried to reach out to her._

_Its fingertips touched the sole of her small foot, making her stiffen. Tentatively, it clutched her whole feet, unclenching a few times as though asking for permission to hold her._

_The fragility of the touch broke her, and she realized that perhaps it was time to stop fearing everything in her head and to start understanding them._

_"Who... What are you...?" Her voice was meek as she asked such a direct question._

_"I..." It started in a voice that sounds like scratches on a board. "You..."_

_"You... made... me."_

* * *

><p>As the busy hands of the surgeons worked professionally, their minds churned so loudly that it could already be heard out loud. Their minds wondered how the girl managed to almost gain consciousness, how would the additional dose would affect her.<p>

And among all these confused mind, a single mind is filled with relief. The phenomenon that just occurred before them was worth more studies, possible prolonging the duration of the girl's experimentation.

From behind her surgical mask, Ada smiled.

* * *

><p><em>"I'm sorry... I'm so sorry..."<em>

_Perhaps it was the guilt that was eating her alive, or maybe it was the fact that she had created the humanoid in front of her, but somehow, she had found the courage to lean towards the malformed creature._

_She lightly pried its hand from her tiny foot before raising her arms and leaning into it. She wrapped her arms around it, careful not to crush it under its weight._

_"I'm sorry..." The words came from the creature this time._

_The girl said nothing, opting to simply hold her creation in her arms._

_The lights around the space grew dimmer, and the girl started to lose her sense of touch. She pulled away a little just to see her hands fading bit by bits._

_It was time to go._

_"Don't..." The creature sounded as though he was in pain. "...go."_

_The stutter had made the creature seem more like a broken child rather than a grotesque monster in her eyes. With a bite on her lip, she gave out an unsure promise._

_"I'll see you again."_

* * *

><p><strong>Aaaaaargh! I'm so sorry for not updating, OMG. I know I said that I'll update after my thesis, but I've decided to take a vacation for a month, then I lost another month to Internship and aaaaaah! Anyways, my prelims is coming up in three days, so yeah. Sorry. <strong>

**Anyways, if you're wondering about the significance of the humanoid creature in #63's brain... Well... Haha!**

**Thanks to Akayuki Sawada and Miyukie-chama for the reviews(I'm so so so sorry, I can't reply right now); to EiniK, Miyukie-chama, PineappleFairy, sheriko, Ogure Michiyo, ACreepingDose, RiverWing21287, LadyDream3512, Lotori, amberintheflame, MagicMysticMojo, Evanescentfacade, Forever Sleepy, and Froggy-chan02 for the follows; and to April Marciano, EiniK, Miyukie-chama, PineappleFairy, becky157689, MagicMysticMojo, Evanescentfacade, and to Froggy-chan02 for the favorites.**

**[[EDIT:I have accidentally uploaded my non-edited version of this story. OMG. AAAAAND, thanks to Akayuki Sawada for spotting my mistake.]]**


	8. Non-existent Fire

**Chapter 7**:

A little over seven days ago, he had first experienced true pain. It was not the same pain he had once experienced when he had tripped after running too carelessly, but the type of pain that had made him want to die than suffer any longer. And he did wish that... For the briefest of moments.

But now, as the dark haired asian boy named Chikusa pondered over all of the events that had transpired in his time in the laboratory, he wondered whether or not lacking any sense of feelings had been better than the torture he had experienced on his first night in that disgustingly white place.

He would have chuckled at his indecisiveness over the choice of pain or not being able to feel anything, but the thought did not really seem to be particularly humorous to him. He knew that he should be happy... It's just that he _couldn't_.

"How ironic." His voice coming out a little bland and disinterested, making him wonder if it had been him who spoke in the first place.

He maneuvered himself so that he was sitting right at the edge of the bed that was a little too big for his small body. He was uncharacteristically tall for someone his age, but despite that, he found himself still having to carefully inch his way down the too-tall bed.

He heard the sound of metal clang against each other, making him look down, only to be met by the sight of his right ankle locked in a shackle connected to the bed with a long chain. It made him curious as to how far can he reach with the chain binding him to the bed. The shackle effectively covered the barcode imprinted band attached to his thin ankles, making him feel a bit at ease for reasons unknown to him.

With light footsteps, he walked across the room towards the bars on the wall where faint light from the sun peaked through. He was a mere arm's length away from the window when he felt a tug on his ankle, almost causing him to lose his balance.

He wasn't really sure what prompted his action, but not a moment later he found himself reaching out towards the window, stretching his arms as far as they can go, his fingers stiffening at the obvious strain. He stood on the tips of his toes, but his fingers were still mere millimeters away from touching the metal bar.

_Closer..._

_Closer..._

_Clo-_

He found himself crashing towards the hard tiled ground, his strained legs obviously no longer able to support his body.

The beginnings of a frustration started to bud inside of him. It made him stop for a moment to observe his feelings closely. The procedure had not completely obliterated all his emotions, he concluded. He tried to feel it once more, but the frustration left him as quickly as it came. But he was satisfied nonetheless, despite the fact that he did not know what to do with the information.

He stayed at his position on the floor, observing the blisters that started to form from where the shackle had held him. He studied the prickling sensation it gave, before concluding that he still, in fact, can feel pain. _Useless_, that was his first thought upon his new realization.

They should have started with the pain first, rather than the emotions.

But despite his thoughts, his actions had been quite contradictory. He moved his ankle around, purposely letting the metal graze the blisters. He found himself not really hating the sensation of the cool metal and light bite of pain.

He stopped all of the sudden, confused. He should be crying, and had this happened the day before he lost his ability to feel, then he would probably be bawling his eyes out.

He suddenly felt an ache, not on his feet, but somewhere deeper inside of him. It felt hollow, as though he was inside a six feet deep grave. It felt as though he was mourning, or at least he should be mourning, for someone he didn't know. He wanted to feel his longing to have his emotions back, but he simply couldn't.

It only took him a few minutes to resign to the fact that he can't there was nothing he could do anymore. He let himself slump on the floor, tugging the chain from time to time. His hand went up to his head, feeling the rough bandage that was firmly wrapped around his stitches. He stayed like that for a moment before picking on the newly sealed wound through the bandage. He picked, he pinched, he scratched, and he even clawed just for the sake of feeling _anything_... Even pain.

* * *

><p>Tony paced around their shared cell, his agitation obvious to anyone who would look. He felt oddly twitchy, as though he had too much energy and didn't know what he would do with all of it. His steps were just a bit too quick for someone who had just claimed to have muscle pains.<p>

His body was aching, but that did not stop him from walking back and forth within their little cell, running his hands through his greasy brown hair from time to time. His adrenaline was spiking up, without him knowing why, nor understanding what was happening to his body.

He felt like his body was now controlling his mind, rather than the opposite.

_Sit._

_Stand._

_Walk._

_Squat._

_Stand._

_Pace._

He stopped for a minute before going to a corner of the room. He slumped with his back facing the wall showing his obvious exhaustion, his arms surrounding his sore legs with his face resting on his knees.

He felt someone plop beside him, making him look up. A mop of blond hair greeted him, making him a few heartbeat calmer. Though the lower half of the face the blond was covered with a make-shift mask, his eyes were painted with confusion, as though he had too many things to ask but had too little words to sort his feelings out.

"Tony..." The blond boy started. His voice muffled from behind the cloth that covered his nose and mouth. The cloth had been tied there by Tony in an attempt to relieve him from smelling anymore fear and animosity inside the room.

Ken saw it, the way Tony grew restless in the past few hours. It had weirded him out at first, but the confusion soon turned into concern when Tony started grabbing his own hair, as though trying to find something to hang on.

"What's happening to you?"

"I..." The brown haired boy's voice was shaking, and so were his hands. "I don't know."

He started to grip his greasy hair, and his breath grew louder and faster. He was practically hyperventilating in the corner of the room. He looked around, only to see the rest of his cellmates purposely avoiding looking at his pitiful form.

"I don't know I don't know I don't knowIdon'tknowIdon-"

"Snap out of it!" It was the first time that Ken had ever raised his voice against him.

Tony felt as though something heavy had been dropped upon him. He felt angry, and his face was growing hot. His chest was heaving so much that he almost looked like an animal. A heat from the pit of his stomach was suddenly ignited. Slowly, the heat travelled throughout the rest of his body.

He was shaking, he was fuming. It was hot. In fact, it was too hot.

He was sweating profusely, and he felt like he was on fire.

"I'm burning!" His random anger was momentarily forgotten, pain taking its place in his mind. "Make it stop!"

He let his whole body drop to the ground, where he started flailing and rolling, trying to desperately put out the non-existent fire that was scorching him from the inside out. His nails dug into his skin, leaving trails of scratched everywhere.

His cellmates, whom were all previously succeeding in pretending that he did not exist, now looked at him with fearful eyes. They huddled in the corner of the room, as far as possible from the agonized boy and his panicking companion.

"Tony!" The golden-eyed boy was crying now, though he did not seem to notice this at all. Instead, his mind was focused on the boy on the floor. He reached out his hand, intending to help him, but quickly recoiled as his skin burned upon touching his friend.

"Oi!" Ken called out to his pathetic cellmates from across the room. "Somebody ask for help!"

And when nobody moved from their spot, he reluctantly left his friend's side, running towards the locked metal door. He pounded on it as hard as his little body can. He growled, he screamed, and he shouted in an attempt to catch anyone's attention.

A scream erupted from behind him, and he turned around only to see Tony barely moving, with his fingers twitching every now and then. He was looking right into Ken's eyes, as though he was pleading him to make the pain stop.

What caught Ken's attention, however, was the brightly burning flame on the brown-haired boy's forehead. Tony opened his mouth to speak, but only a light stream of smoke came out.

Ken tried to get to his friend, but the door opened at the same time, slamming hard into him and knocking him unto the floor. Many of those white-clad men poured in, all surrounding the brunette.

It barely took them a minute to hoist the boy up and take him away. They disappeared as quickly as they have come, but not before Ken caught one of them whispering,

"The reaction to the Flame test had been a bit too late, but I think this can be considered as a success."

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Quick update! Long time no update, hshs. Buuuut, now that my midterm exams are now over, I'll finally have more free time to write and do stuff. Yeah.**

**Tony is honestly slowly settling into this tiny little space in my heart and I just- urgh.**

**Anyways, thanks for those who reviewed, followed and faved. Love you, guys**


	9. Guinea Pig

**Chapter 8:**

Two weeks. It had been two weeks since he had been ripped away from his family to become a pathetic lab rat to adults who believed that they're doing the world a favor with the shitty experiments they conduct- that what they're doing is an act of goodness. But they were nothing more than glorified assholes, he realized.

He was special, he knew. It could have just been his young mind working its swelling ego and poisoning his head, but he's smarter than that. In this place, there was no room for egocentrism. In this place, adapting comes first, and he was lucky enough to adapt quickly.

Him- with his indigo hair and indigo eyes that always held a look mostly seen on adults, he was special. His mother knew that, his father knew that, _he_ knew that, and now, _they_ know as well.

_They_, being the researchers in this laboratory in all their white glory.

On his first day as a human guinea pig, there had been at five of them in this specific experiment, and every time he would be called from his cell, the other four children would always be replaced with new faces. He wasn't dumb, he was well aware that the others had already died, and the new ones he was seeing were nothing but replacements. It had only been fourteen days, but he had already seen at least twenty replacements so far. Everyone with him is always changing.

But he was a constant. Among all the others in this procedure, he was the only one who are yet to be 'replaced', which he found to be a little bit pathetic considering the fact that he has no idea on what he was doing in that procedure in the first place.

_Success_. He was considered to be a success, that much he knew. Success of what? He didn't know, and he could hardly care- not now, not yet anyways.

Long gone were the talk of deaths and desire to be dead, instead, his human instinct to survive had taken over, making him desire to prolong his life for as long as he can. And the only way to do that is for him to let himself submit to the torture and live long enough to be the human weapon they want him to be.

And after that... He'll destroy everything with his own hands.

But that vision is for the future. Tomorrow is for the wishful thinkings. Today, he was #69: a guinea pig, a lab rat, whatever it is that he was called.

* * *

><p>"#69"<p>

The boy lifted his gaze from the floor, and directed it to the man in front of him. The man looked liked every other adult that he has ever seen in this place, with their white garments almost blending in with the white walls and the white walls. He almost scoffed, even the chair he was currently sitting on was white, and so was the cast that bound his broken leg.

"I need you to give me a complete account of what happened while we were operating on you."

The boy kept silent, but kept looking straight into the eyes of the man as though asking, '_Do you think of me as dumb?'_

The man scoffed at the unasked question. He walked closer to the boy and grabbed his chin roughly. "Listen here, you little shit."

"You're here inside this laboratory to comply, not to resist. We hold you here, and we hold your life."

When the boy still remained silent, the man released him.

"You know whose else's life we hold?" He asked in a smug tone, letting the boy here his smirk through the mask.

The boy's eye narrowed with thought, only to widen in realization.

"That's right!" He talked as though he was talking to an infant. "We have your family. Not here, of course. But a tiny little phone call is all we need, and... poof!"

The boy's lips thinned. He can't afford that. He had wanted to use his family as a motivation for him to want to live and go home, not as a blackmail material for those researchers to use.

He took a deep breath and heaved a heavy sigh. He spilled all of his knowledge, and all the memories he could recall in that Red Place as he had dubbed it. All of it: starting from the gate, the sea, the horned man-like creature, the abyss, and even the girl and the white place.

The man's eyes crinkled with what probably was a hidden smile, and he lightly patted the boy's cheek twice. "That wasn't so hard, was it?"

He resisted the temptation of barbarically biting the man's fingers off, and instead focusing on telling himself that the documentation was simply a step for him to come home. He didn't fully believe that, but it was all he had right now. But one day, he will ensure that that man would be the first to go down.

* * *

><p>Ken paced around the tiny cell, chewing on one of his fingernails as he tried to simultaneously breath through his mouth as to prevent his breakfast from coming out as bile if he were to breath through his nose. He had already managed to successfully chew off six of his nails nearly to the base, but he didn't seem to notice that. Instead, he focused on the fact that it had also been six days since he had last seen Tony.<p>

He already lost #14 a little less than a week ago, and now he seemed to have lost another one of the few people that made him feel as though he belonged. He didn't even try to get close to his other remaining cellmates, aside from the occasional one or two words that passed between them. It was as if there was an unspoken rule that ordered them to keep to themselves.

His pacing stopped as the metal door or their little cell opened, creaking loudly and grating his ears. An indigo-haired boy staggered inside the room, unable to carry his own weight without the help of the white man holding him by the arm. He was unceremoniously dropped unto the floor, his palms smacking loudly against the tiles.

The boy stood up as quickly as he fell, sending a dirty look towards the exiting back of the man in white that dropped him. He let his gaze linger until the door finally closed once more. His knees buckled slightly at the sound of the door locking, but he kept his stance, and walked towards an unoccupied corner of the tiny cell, dragging his broken leg.

He walked with one of his arms in front of him, as though he can't see. That was when Ken noticed that one of his eyes was heavily bandaged, while the other was set into an indifferent stare. Another thing he observed was that among all of his companions in the cell, the indigo-haired boy had been someone whose voice he's never heard before.

Ken was about to approach him when the boy suddenly plopped down on the empty corner, and propped himself up against the wall. The boy looked intently at nothing in front of him, a ghost of a smirk playing on his thin lips. The fact that the boy was still able to smugly smirk that way after an experiment unnerved Ken, and so, he went back to his pacing, putting the indigo-haired boy's frightening look to the back of his mind.

* * *

><p>Hot. It was hot. There was nothing else to feel, but the heat. The heat and the dull pain coming from the head of a lone boy lying on a white bed. It was dark too, and he suddenly realized that his eyes were heavily closed with tiredness. Brown eyes wearily opened, only to close almost immediately due to the heavily light directly above his face.<p>

He tried once more, slower this time, until his eyes finally grew accustomed to the piercing light. His vision was both shaky and blurry, as though he was seeing for the first time in a long while. His mind was a mess too, and not a single one of his thoughts made sense.

In the midst of the haze inside his head, he had managed to make out the bags of intravenous fluids hanging above his head connected to a needle piercing his arm. He stared at the bags pointedly, trying to remember exactly why he was receiving them in the first place. But before he can figure it out, he suddenly felt a looming presence beside him.

There, on the side of his bed, was a man covered in white. On his arm was a black clipboard that the man clutched tightly. The boy would had scoffed at the monotonous monochrome, but his body seemed to be far too tired for that. And there was that dull throbbing too that kept distracting him.

"#12, is it?" The man's voice felt amplified in his ears.

"No..." The boy groggily replied. He seemed to take some time to remember who he was. "To... ny..."

"#12, then." The man firmly stated.

The man placed his hand lightly on the boy's forehead, and only then that the boy realized that he had bandages wrapped around his head. With trembling hands, he touched the bandages, shooting sharp pain as he touched whatever injury there was beneath them.

"You have second degree burns on your forehead," the man in white said matter-of-factly. "You're currently under light painkillers, so you probably won't be able to feel nor think much."

Tony wondered why he was telling him that in the first place. 'Aren't we nothing but pigs to be slaughtered in this place?' He thought.

Apparently, he though out loud, as the man replied to him. "We're not all like that here."

"Not all of us like doing what we do."

"Why do it then?"

"Because."

"Because what?" He already knew the answer, the human patchwork had already explained to them their predicament, and yet... he wanted this man's answer, he wanted to know if this man is suffering just as much as them mentally at the very least.

But before he could press more for answers, the man had already pulled out a syringe, inserting it inside a valve connected to the fluids attached to him. Dark spots danced around his vision, and it didn't take long before everything faded into black.

Moments just before his mind shut down completely, the boy thought he heard the man utter,

"_I'm sorry_."

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Long time no update, omfg. I'm so so sorry, I got so caught up with college and yeah. Anyways, just a clarification: #63 did a little time skip of 3 months, while the rest of the characters remains on the third week. I'm planning making the timelines meet halfway. I just thought I'd say that in case anyone was confused about the timeline. If anyone needs a clearer timeline table thing, don't hesitate to ask.**

**OOC Mukuro, tho. Don't worry! I plan on slowly building up his character until he finally becomes the insufferable little shit that we all love.**

**Akayuki Novak: Ha! You thought he was a goner didn't you? I've thought about that too ;^;**

**Guest: Yessss, embrace that feel.**

**Aaand thanks to .cake , DisGamerChick, Sweet baba, Celeste D. Lilica, Sylanc,harukadesu00, Chaos'sBride, Bandyyyy, Pandakat312, AppleBerryPie, KHRandHxHforevs, KyaaILoveIt, MewChiiLi, Hot-Magma, belerius, bobbinbird, ItsALifeToLiveIn, FreeHugs0009 for the alerts; To .cake, Sweet baba, Celeste D. Lilica, harukadesu00, Chaos'sBride, Bandyyyy, Pandakat312, AppleBerryPie, Plexi Pink, XxHeartMenderxX, KyaaILoveIt for the faves.**


	10. Weapon

**Chapter 9:**

"Let me go!" A young blonde boy with a bandaged nose kicked and screamed. He was currently being held by two men, easily twice his size. "I said, let me go!"

The men were dragging him through a series of long hallways that looked confusingly like every other hallway that they have passed. Not for him though, as he vaguely remembered the twist and turns to be the same one they had taken him to on his first night in the place.

He could still feel the slight throbbing of his nose from when they had cut him before, and it didn't help that his sense of smell had caused him quite a pain all the while.

He kept on struggling despite the fact that he was perfectly aware of how futile it was. He was aware that all his effort were useless, and yet he still continued as it was one of the only things in the place that made him feel alive.

Sooner than he would have liked, they had arrived in front of a looming metallic door. The door opened, revealing the room to be exactly the way it looked many nights ago.

"Send it into the x-ray room." One of the adults said in a derogatory manner.

That was when he noticed another door on the other side of the room. He wondered how come he did not notice it the first time he came here, but decided that it was probably because he was too panicked to notice it before.

He was much calmer now, after hearing that he would only be undergoing an x-ray examination. The door to the x-ray room opened, and only then that the men who were previously holding decided to let go.

They gave him some kind of padded vest, like some kind of a protective gear before directing him to the middle of he room, where some kind of an instrument was suspended, surrounded by two wall-like revolving contraptions . They lifted it down to level near his head before instructing him to bite on a small stub-like plastic protruding from the instrument. He did so without hesitance, as though he had forgotten that he was supposed to resist and to fight.

The wall-like structure revolved around him, scanning his head mostly. He didn't really understand what they wanted to do with him, but as long as it wasn't painful then he was fine with it.

Now that he thought about it, complying felt much easier than struggling. There were no unnecessary pain or difficulty. But then he remembered Tony, cutting off his previous train of thought.

The machine stopped revolving and he quickly distanced himself from the machine. He shook his head, his eyes suspiciously watering and stinging. '_I can't just spit on Tony's memory like that!'_

And he vowed to struggle harder the next time they take him.

* * *

><p>It had been a short week since the indigo-haired boy had been called from his little cell, and frankly, he wished to be out of there sooner. Ever since he had started to have the will to live and permanently escape the white personal hell where he was kept in, he had been anticipating every time they wanted to experiment on him- to improve him.<p>

It was quite the masochistic thought, but it was only for now when he is still weak. One day, though, when he is strong enough, he will no longer be the tool but the master. The master who could easily make and break anyone he puts his fingers on. He wanted have the same power as the white-clad men over him, and the same power as the Estraneo Head, able to turn the smartest scientists into his mere thoughtless puppets.

He wanted that power. He _needed_ that power. But to have that, he must first get stronger, and if it helps, dismantle himself piece by piece just to achieve that.

His thoughts briefly drifted towards his cell mates. There were only three of them at the moment. Four if you would count the blonde haired one who was dragged out kicking and screaming a while ago, but he didn't count on him returning.

One of them looked like he's already on his way to breaking his mind if his frantic scratching and nail-biting was anything to go by, while the other looked like he's already there and maybe even past his breaking point.

The boy was rocking himself back and forth, with his knees reaching his chest and his hands pulling on his hair, tearing them out of his bleeding scalp.

The indigo boy sneered in disgust. _Weak. Disgustingly weak. Pathetically weak._

But he did find the look of insanity on the boy's face to be quite... _Endearing_. He liked that look, he decided. And he would most likely enjoy it better on the faces hiding behind white masks.

The door of their cell creaked open for the second time that day. The most-likely-insane boy screamed frantically at the sound. He was crying so much, with mucus flowing down from his nose to his chin, and saliva dribbling down until it reached his shirt. He wasn't really saying anything that makes sense, and instead just making so much ruckus.

The white man who opened the door simply ignored the hysterical boy, and looked at the indigo-haired one with a cast instead. The boy looked right back at him, making him quirk his brow at the expectant expression that the boy held. The man inclined his head, and was surprised to see the boy standing up obediently despite the smirk he had on his face.

The boy made his way to the man slowly, limping due to his broken leg. The man gently held his shoulders as a form of support despite the obvious stiffening of the boy upon the touch. Truth to be told, the man was just simply relieved to find a cooperative one.

He closed the metal door, pointedly not acknowledging the indecipherable cries and pleas of the boy inside. He only wished that he wouldn't have to deal with the insane boy one day.

* * *

><p>"The Red Place..." A woman's voice spoke from behind a mask. "We wish to send to you there again."<p>

The boy hesitated this time. He wanted to get stronger, but he was pretty sure that sending him back to that place wouldn't be of any help. If anything, he would most likely die the next time he sets foot on the place.

He wasn't even sure how he had fallen the other time considering the fact that he remembered clearly waking up in front of a gate. A lot of things about that time had been too hazy for him to comprehend despite the fact that he remembered the other events quite vividly. And he doesn't really wish to meet the malnourished man from before.

"Don't look so scared." The boy let out a scoff at those words. He was aware that they were supposed to be comforting, but they didn't see what he saw.

"We don't intend you to go unprepared."

His eyebrows quirked at this. If he were to be honest, the woman had been the kindest person he had met in this place so far, which is quite a stretch considering the fact that she was yet to do anything kind for him.

"One of my colleagues told me about your cooperation awhile ago." The woman said. "You're a very special boy. Quite rare, actually."

He had no idea where the one-sided conversation was going.

"You're a smart child, not a genius per se, but smart in terms of maturity- of seeing and understanding the world." The woman continued, "had you been years older than you are, you'd probably be the one performing the experiments right now rather than having them performed on you."

"You'd like that wouldn't you?"

Considering the fact that he had just planned on murdering everyone in the establishment in cold blood, he certainly didn't want that. They could take all the intelligence and do all their experiments, but he'll take the power over anything every time.

"Would you like to know what happened to your eye?"

"Why would you tell me anything?" He was skeptical.

"You're the most promising person we ever had the pleasure of meeting here."

"So you wish to make me your ally," he smirked. "You want to make sure that you'll one day be on the side of power."

"The way you phrase it makes me sound quite mean," the smirk she had behind the mask could be heard through her voice. "I just like having a healthy working relationship with my colleagues, including potential future ones."

"Oh, so I'm more than a lab rat now?" His tone was dripping with sarcasm.

"That eye of yours," she pointedly ignored his question. She walked towards the boy, her gloved hands grazing over his bandages for a while before untying them. She unwrapped them slowly, taking her time in letting her hands circle around his head.

Once it was completely off, she pulled a compact mirror from one of her front pockets. She handed it to him in order to let him see the product of the operation.

He was surprised to see not his usual indigo eye staring back at him. Instead, was met by the sight of an unfamiliar eye with a color not unlike the sun he had seen in the red place. The color was much brighter than blood, so bright that looking at it made his other eye hurt. There was also a Kanji there if he guessed right, but his mother had not yet taught him how to read that.

"Legend says that that eye belonged to the Demon himself, you know?" She crossed her arms. "Hades, Satan, whatever you call him. They said that he pulled out his own eye and implanted it on a bird with feathers as dark as the night in order to observe the world above him, the world he couldn't reach."

"They say that the eye contains abilities beyond this world. You could summon monsters, bend reality, and even assume complete control over someone else with them."

The boy's interest peaked at the last one.

"However, the legend behind it is yet to be confirmed," she said with a shrug. "And that's where you come in."

"We need you in order to prove that these abilities exists," she lightly jabbed her finger on the chest of the sitting boy. "We've already established the existence of hell, and now, we just need to prove it a second time."

"We intend on sending you there with something to protect you this time. However, it would seem as though only your _soul_ of some sort gets transported there and not your whole body."

"In order to give you a weapon, we need you to be able to create on using an ability that the has apparently has: the power to bend reality, otherwise known as-"

The boy spoke,

"Illusions."

* * *

><p><strong>AN: First time uploading on a non-Saturday night, yo! I was going to upload this tomorrow, but then I remembered that I have somewhere to go to, and I didn't want to make you guys wait another week before updating.**

**Aah, I've been writing so much about Mukuro latelyyyy. I'm probably making the next chapter centered on Tony. I wanted to give him a much bigger part than the brief death he had in the original Khr, and integrate him with the development of Ken and Chikusa- mostly Ken, though. Hshs, this is hard.**

**little101: thank!**

**Akayuki Novak: They've kinda been since the start, with Mukuro describing them as weak in one of the earlier chapters, but I didn't want Ken to acknowledge anyone until he no longer has Tony and Chikusa.**

**Thanks to Monochromatic Kamui, Grey-Rain-Cloud, michimiau2011, Choco-Latte64, Eviclair, and Liune for the alerts; and to Monochromatic Kamui, animeluver1827, michimiau2011, Choco-Latte64, Eviclair, and to Liune for the favorites.**

**P.s.: Just a friendly reminder that the review button exist both for members and anons, and that getting feedback helps quite a lot and is highly appreciated. That's all, sorry for the inconvenience, thank you!**


	11. Behind the Monster

**Chapter 10:**

_It felt hot. It felt as though he was burning from the inside. A little more heat would probably melt his own skin off._

_He struggled hard. He kicked and flailed, despite the fact that he was sure that none of his movements would really help extinguish the inferno inside of him. But he still struggled, as he felt inclined to do something- anything, just to get his mind off of the hellish sensation._

_He suddenly felt something touch his forehead. It was warm, but it was the comforting kind unlike the fire inside of him. It help relieve the heat slowly, up until it was nothing more than a tiny little flick of flame that he could barely feel._

_"Tony."_

_A woman's voice called out to him. It was familiar. It was comforting. It sounded like home. He wanted to go and get close to the source of the sound, but he couldn't even open his own eyes._

_He was stuck in the dark, unable to move. But he was oddly okay with it. The thing on his forehead slowly moved down, so that it caressed his cheek._

_"Tony," the voice was softer than he had ever hear. "Wake up. Open your eyes."_

_He wanted nothing more than to do just that. But the more he tried, the harder it seemed to open them. The woman must have sensed his distress, as he suddenly felt its owner move from his cheek up to his eyes._

_Slowly, he was able to open them. Only to be met by the sight of familiar blindingly white walls. Right in front of him was his mother, but it felt wrong somehow._

_He finally realized that she was wearing scarily spotless laboratory gowns, partnered with equally white cap and gloves. Her mask was down, revealing a face with a malice that he's never seen before on his mother's face._

_It scared him. Until it dawned on him that he was simply dreaming._

_The woman raised her hand, revealing a syringe filled with a black liquid._

_He squeezed his eyes to wake himself up, but that did not work._

_The syringe got closer and closer, as he tried harder and harder to get out._

_Its tip touch his forehead, and slowly started to force its way into his flesh. He could feel his own skin burning where the needle had penetrated him._

_He continued to force himself to wake up._

_Again,_

_And again,_

_And..._

* * *

><p><em>"Again."<em>

Buckets of sweat dripped from a mop of brown hair down to a dirty white shirt that absorbed it all. Brown eyes glared at a white clad man holding a clipboard in front of him, as though wishing for the white to turn into ashes. He wanted to attack the man with all his strength, but he can only continue to glare due to the metal straps that held him tightly against a metal chair.

"No."

"Try to think of fire again."

"No."

"Again, #12."

"I said no." The boy responded. "And my name is Tony."

The man in white heaved a sigh as he dropped his clipboard in resignation. He pulled down his mask, and tiredly rubbed his sloppily groomed stubble.

"Jesus Christ, you're one hard-headed little shit."

The sight had been enough to make the boy gape in shock. It was his first time to see a scientist without their pristine white mask. The normality behind the mask had simply caught him off guard.

"You're human..." He unconsciously whispered.

"Huh? What else would I be?" The man offhandedly replied, while he furiously rubbed at his tired eyes. His eyes suddenly snapped wide, remembering that he wasn't even supposed to be talking to a specimen.

"A monster."

"What...?" The man couldn't help but reply in confusion.

"You're supposed to be a monster." The boy repeatedly shook his head, his mind not yet processing a new concept. "You can't be normal underneath. You're not supposed to be human."

"Ah."

The man simply gaped at the specimen- no, the boy. They were seen as monsters. His colleagues, his friends, and even himself. They were all monsters in this boy's eyes, and all the other wide eyes that they see dimming on a day to day basis.

"We're not monsters."

He had no idea what compelled him to talk, and defend himself. He just simply felt like he had to say something, just to convince both him and the boy that he was not a monster.

"Why do you do all of these then?" The boy glared. He had always been one to feel and act, rather than think. He did not understand the logic of their actions, he probably never will.

The man did not speak for a long time. He wanted to compose his thoughts first. He wanted to make everything sound clear to him.

"We just want to live."

"So you kill off little brats like me," the boy spat with so much anger. "You want to live, so you completely disregard our want to live just to save yourselves!"

"That's not it." He had no idea what was there to argue about. "We're trying to give you a new shot in life. We only want you to be able to go out there as Estraneo's without having to fear your for your lives!"

"Fuck the Estraneo!"

"Fuck the Mafia!"

"Fuck you!"

"Look-"

"Look at what!?"

A little lab rat screaming against a scientist was certainly a sight to see. Everything looked, smelled, and tasted surreal, like it was a scene none of them imagined.

"I don't know..." The man whispered. "I have no idea."

"All I know is that I have to do this."

"You don't really understand any of these, either?" The boy's anger is slowly being changed into confusion.

"Not a thing." The man replied. "I just know that I have to do this if I want to see my daughter again."

The confession had shocked both of them into silence. The two just simply stared at each other until the boy shakily asked,

"Y-you have a child?"

The man wanted to not answer the boy, but eventually caved in at the thought of him never getting the chance to speak about his sentiments outside the tiny four-walled cell.

"A lot of us do." He started. "The man who delivers your meals, the person that cleans the facilities, the surgeons that cut people open. Most of them have a family to care for, and all of us have our children strapped down the same chains, living in the same cell, eating the same food."

"They could be dead already, though. Which is a highly likely scenario." He shrugged. "We don't really get news about them, so we wouldn't know."

"... Why are you telling me all these?"

"I'm not really sure, either." The man chuckled. "Maybe it's because you're the only one willing to listen."

"And your friends?"

"They're colleagues, not friends." The man corrected. "This is a place for work. There are no room for hearts."

The boy did not speak anymore, opting to absorb all the things he had learned in the span of an hour. He wasn't the only one hurting, he realized. Yes, there are a lot of sick men in white in this place, but there are also ones that are only here to save their loved ones.

"We'll continue this tomorrow," the man said as he picked up his discarded clipboard. "Hopefully, you'll be easier to work with, then."

The man was in the process of removing the straps from the boy, save from the ones on his limbs, when the boy asked,

"If I were to improve, what would happen to then?"

"Hmm? First, you'll get to go out of quarantine and back to your old cell. Train, and one you're good enough, move out of the labs completely. Maybe even reunited with your old family, if you still have one."

The boy had a hard time sleeping that night. Instead, he had thought about going back to his old cell, where Ken and #49 was. Next, he thought about getting out of the laboratory. He thought about being released from the white hell he's been the past few months.

He did not think about his family. He knew that thinking about his mother would only hurt. Not when he's seen her die right in front of him.

But he could still dream of her, he supposed.

* * *

><p><em>"Just what have I told you about fighting the big kids down the block?" A young woman sighed whilst tending to her brown haired son's swollen eye and wounds.<em>

_"They started it!" He shouted._

_His mother simply dabbed a cotton ball of alcohol harder against a small cut. The boy hissed in pain, his eyes tearing up at the unexpected discomfort._

_"Tony..." The woman sighed. "It doesn't matter who started it."_

_"I ask you time and time again not to get into fights anymore- to turn the other cheek, but you always disobey me over and over." Her voice held so much tiredness in them._

_"I'm sorry." His lips trembled into a childish-looking pout with his sincere remorse._

_"It's okay," his mother could not resist how adorable her son looked. "Just don't do it again, okay?"_

_The child nodded whilst trying to inhale the mucous threatening to drip from his nose._

_"I want you to mean it this time."_

_"I won't fight again, I promise."_

_She let him go after tending to him, knowing perfectly well that Tony was going to disobey her order again the first chance he gets._

_She constantly worried about him and his rowdy behavior. Children fighting children weren't uncommon in their dirty neighborhood- especially not in their world. But still, seeing her five year old son come home looking more like a bruise than a child just pulls strings within her._

_She sighed,_

_"That child will be the death of me."_


	12. Time

**Chapter 11:**

The heavy scent of alcohol, and the thick smoke of cigarettes suffocatingly filled the air. Crinkling of paper could be heard, as a man sitting behind a mahogany desk crumpled piles of paper in his hand with such ferocity that it threatened to rip the various stitches decorating his hand.

Much like the man's hands, his face was also covered in various slices of skin stitched together, with each patch of skin looking like it belong to different people, making him look like a badly done human patchwork.

With his hand that was not gripping the paper, he took a long drag of his cigarette as he slowly unclenched his other hand from its death grip. He gave an aggravated sigh.

"Look at me," he gave a dry chuckle and said to no one in particular. "The head of Estraneo Famiglia, losing his temper over some pieces of paper.

They were more than 'pieces of paper', he knew, but if he let himself get angry over them again, then he was bound to get nowhere. He tried to think back to the recent news of his experiments.

_162._

Only 162 of the remaining children passed the preliminary tests of their respective experiments.

He was stuck on a dead end. He can't dispose of the rejected ones without wasting precious potential man-power, but he could not yet make a progressive move towards those who passed without risking potential loss. And he could not afford to invest too much time without doing anything- the crumpled document in his hand reminded him of that.

The paper contained a list of the recently fallen members of his family,

He drummed his fingers of the desk.

_Time is ticking fast._

* * *

><p>A Japanese boy wildly thrashed against the restraints binding his limbs to a chair. His body felt as though he was being burned from the inside, with the fire crawling out of his body through his pores. His mind can't register anything but the pain. Against his naked head were wires of some sort, most likely connected to machines that he couldn't see.<p>

Directly in front of him was a wide glass wall, and behind it stood two men. One of the men had brown hair, while the other had platinum blonde, but both of them were covered in white. They were near a table of some sort, where they pressed buttons and turned knobs, trying to gauge the pain the boy was in through a monitor that showed the mapping of the boy's brain in detail.

"Donato," the brown haired man called out to his superior. His eyes were trained towards a particular area in the boy's brain that brightly lit up for the whole duration of the Pain test.

Donato's eyes followed his companion's, and immediately arrived with the same conclusion.

"Turn it off," said the voice of the blond-haired man. On his hands were a pair of eye glasses that belonged to the young boy in front of them.

His companion obeyed wordlessly, and proceeded to take out a pen from one of his coat's pockets. He picked up a clipboard from the table, and waited for his superior to give a command.

"Cross out the first hypothesis," he said. "Seems like the lack of fear or emotions in general has no direct correlation towards the perception of pain."

The boy was still violently shaking when he met eyes with the man in charge. Despite not hearing anything from their side, he was sure that they were talking- carefully calculating what they will do to him next. He didn't like it. Unknowingly, he gave a hard stare. The man only stared back unblinkingly, the gear of his mind churning.

Donato proceeded to a door leading to the other side of the glass, where the boy was being restrained, leaving his companion to observe further changes that might appear. He walked up to the boy and kneeled in front of him so they would meet at an eye level. Carefully, he placed the boy's glasses back to his face.

"Guiseppe," he called the attention of his companion on the other side, eyes still not leaving the boy's. He twisted his body slightly so his companion outside could see. "Look at his eyes."

"He's glaring," Guiseppe took some time before finally realizing what it meant. He took a quick look at the monitor connected to the boy's brain, and saw that without the interference of the pain signals, he was able to see faint traces of light where emotions like anger would usually be. "We were not able to destroy his emotions completely… I thought you've already confirmed it?"

"I've seen his indifference, though." He was sure of it. The boy had been apathetic the first time he met him after the preliminary surgery.

"The signal is quite weak, It's glowing fainter now." Guiseppe observed, eyes never leaving the monitor. "The surgery did work, just not completely. I doubt we could really sever his emotions without damaging his brain, so it's better than nothing, I guess."

"Perhaps, it only shows in extreme situations?"

"Could be." Guiseppe agreed. He added as an afterthought, "He must be really angry right now."

* * *

><p>"According to the account of your experience in the Red Place, you were somehow transported into a white place with a green-eyed girl. The same girl you saw on your first procedure, is that right?" A woman said, as her sharp eyes raked over the papers she held in her hands.<p>

"Yes," an indigo-haired boy replied with more self-confidence than heshould probably have.

He was called out again by the same woman some time after their last meeting. The woman had asked him to be comfortable around her, considering the prospects of their future potential acquaintanceship. He couldn't do that, of course, but he did manage to act as though he felt a bit more loose around her presence than he actually was without letting his guard down.

"Do you have any connections with the girl that you saw in the White Place?" That's what they had uncreatively dubbed the space he had been transported to upon escaping hell.

"No," he shook his head. "But you do, don't you?"

"Yes," the woman smirked at the boy from behind her mask. From the bottom of the papers she held in her arms, she pulled out a thin, stapled pile and held it so that it would face the boy. "We have all her information right here."

"She belongs to a different laboratory branch of Estraneo, all the way to Mount Etna." She took the papers again, and scanned its contents. "We have different theories as to why you connected to her, but none of them are certain yet, and none of them matters at the moment anyways."

'Why talk about her, then?' He wanted to ask. But the woman had seemed to hear his unasked question.

"The place you went to was the girl's mind." She stated. "We originally intended you to be able to come into your own, but failed to do so."

"Instead, we managed to let you into someone else's. Someone whose mind barriers had recently been lifted and cleared. Unlike yours, that's constantly on guard." She paced around for a while, trying to find her words. "We figured that rather than force you to break into your own mind, or anyone else's for that matter, it would be safer for you to start small, and synchronize your progress with hers."

"She started with a blank canvas that you could easily penetrate. As time progresses, her mind would pile up on information, and gain barriers, until they completely seal it."

The unexpected result of the experiments on him gave birth to alternative paths that they could take, he finally understood. Those paths would give them the opportunity to fully utilize his possible abilities with the least consequence. As the girl's mind become stronger, his own ability to occupy hers will also improve.

"Do you remember our conversation last time?" She did not wait for him to answer. "We wish to send you back to _The Red Place_."

"But, in order to do that, we need to equip you with a weapon of sorts. A weapon that you would be able to take with you on a dimension where reality does not exist. A weapon that you would have to build yourself in a place where reality can be bent."

'Where?' He wanted to ask, but refrained from doing so in case the woman found him stupid.

"_The White Place_." The woman smirked. "We've already sent the proposal to the Estraneo Head to prevent pissing off the ones in charge of her project."

"How do I make this weapon?"

"Illusions." The woman said simply. She pulled out a different stapled pile of papers which were way thicker than the last one. "This is an theoretical study on illusions from one of the first generation Estraneos. This project died out quickly no specimen lived long enough to finish the preliminary phase of the testing… Until now, that is."

"We start by having you learn how to bend your reality through mental exercises. Basically, you just go through learning how to incorporate bits and pieces of your imagination, per se, into the real world. You, trying to create a weapon would be quite a good start as it makes it more objective than just trying to randomly think up of things."

"Like daydreams?"

"That's a simple way of putting it, I guess," she said with a contemplative look. "Once you've successfully done that, you will then try to bend someone reality in someone else's mind."

"The green eyed girl…" He concluded.

The woman gave a hum of response. "Experiment #63, specifically."

The way the woman addressed the girl by a number rubbed him off the wrong way. Simply because he know that in her mind, she sees him as nothing more than a number too. Even worse is that she probably sees him more as a tool that she has successfully manipulated to her own liking. He wanted to show his anger, but he held it. After all, he still needs to get stronger.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: So, ummm… It's official. I've already figured out how to incorporate #63 into the canon. I'm going to try and speed things up starting with the next chapter so I could head over faster towards the fall of Estraneo and to them wandering to Northern Italy(I'll just call that Lancia arc for convenience), which is where most of their character development would happen. The way I want to present their experiments would be a bit different to how I usually write, so hopefully, that would work.**

**oh, um... Please leave a review. Thank you.**


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